The current debate around the environment is completely human centric. This is not surprising given our overwhelming confidence in our collective self-importance, but it does color the debate in ways that simultaneously distort it. It is fine to do this as long as we are aware that we are doing it. If we are doing it ignorantly, however, it diminishes our ability to understand what is really happening. In Strategic CSR, most of this plays out in the discussion around whether the natural environment is a stakeholder of the firm (Chapter 4). My argument is that it is not, simply because the natural environment does not have agency. If there are no interests that can be directly articulated to the manager, then the manager should instead focus on the self-appointed representatives of the environment (Greenpeace, the government, etc.) who definitely do have agency and are willing to act. Whether those actors 'know' the interests of the environment is another thing altogether – the key point is that they have interests and are able to pursue them in ways that directly affect the firm.
But, I digress. Back to the distortions around discussions about the environment. It is very common for us to say, for example, that pollution makes the environment worse. Of course, it does no such thing. It may make it less amenable to human life, which we may not like (although that is an empirical question that humanity is still working on), but it does not make it worse, per se. Mars has an environment, just like the Earth has an environment. Both of them are perfectly good environments; it is just that only one can sustain human life. That is not a rhetorical nuance, it is essential to understanding our place on this planet and beginning the process of deciding whether we want to keep living on it. The article in the url below sums up why this distinction is important:
"We speak of 'saving' the Earth as if it were a little bunny in need of help. We show images of gaunt polar bears on melting ice floes to elicit guilt and environmental action. But those images and stories blind us to the reality of this remarkable moment in Earth's history. Our planet does not need our saving. The biosphere has endured cataclysms far worse than us — and after millions of years thrived again. Even the Earth's five fearsome mass extinctions became opportunities for the biosphere's creativity, driving new rounds of evolutionary experiments. … In the long term, the biosphere will handle pretty much anything we throw at it, including climate change."
In reality, we need the 'environment' much more than it needs us:
"What Earth's history does make clear, however, is that if we don't take the right kind of action soon the biosphere will simply move on without us, creating new versions of itself in the changing climate we're generating now. So we must be honest. The problem is not saving the Earth or life writ large, but saving our cherished civilization. From that perspective the nature of our choices changes significantly."
We are subservient to the greater environment, but the environment doesn't 'care' whether we are here or not. In other words, there is no pre-determined outcome to this story where we inevitably survive:
"From the biosphere's perspective, a city is fundamentally no different from a forest. Both are the result of life's endless evolutionary experiments. And forests, like grasslands, insects and oxygen-producing microbes, were once an evolutionary innovation. In that sense we, and our project of civilization, are not a plague on the planet. We are just what the biosphere is doing now. The question then becomes what changes must we make to still be 'what it's doing' many millenniums from now?"
The Earth is part of a much bigger story and we, at best, play a bit role. We are expendable, from the planet's perspective. The quicker we realize this, the greater the likelihood that we will take meaningful action, rather than waiting for someone/something else to do it for us.
Take care
David
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Earth Will Survive. We May Not.
Earth Will Survive. We May Not.
By Adam Frank
June 13, 2018
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
A25
