At what cost consumption?
G. ANANTHAKRISHNAN
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A comparative history of environmentalism in two large democracies, India and the U.S.
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HOW MUCH SHOULD A PERSON CONSUME? - Thinking Through the Environment: Ramachandra Guha, Permanent Black, D-28, Oxford Apartments, 11, I.P. Extension, Delhi-110092. Rs. 595.
One of the most contentious issues of our time is whether the relentless pursuit of economic prosperity through limitless consumption has set humanity on a slippery slope.
The question of consumption and erosion of natural resources has engaged distinguished economists as well as ecologists for long. A team of social scientists and ecologists led by Kenneth Arrow, Partha Dasgupta and Paul Ehrlich attempted to mathematically answer the question, "Are we consuming too much?" (Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2004). They looked at the benefits arising out of consumption while calculating investments made by countries in human and industrial capital. To arrive at the final score, they weighed this against the depletion of natural capital in various countries.
The authors have understandably acknowledged that the question can never really be answered with any degree of finality, until there is sufficient knowledge about all aspects of ecosystems and their contribution to human welfare (Conservation in Practice, Vol. 6, No.2, 2005).
The interim evidence suggests that countries that invest in manufactured capital, knowledge and skills are better off than those that are exhausting natural resources rapidly without making positive investments (such as the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa and, to a lesser degree, India).
By asking, "How much should a person consume," Ramachandra Guha sets his own enquiry on a similar course. This question is squarely addressed only in the ultimate chapter of his book with some very interesting perspectives on the distortions in global energy use and consumption. The preachers of the developed world consume far more than the less affluent countries to whom they preach.
Ecological activism
The chapters that lead up to the finale are devoted to a withering analysis of the frailties of the environmental movement, the practice of conservation in the Indian and American contexts and the ecological patriots in both lands who remain obscure. Guha repeatedly draws attention to the traditional strengths of Indian society that have protected nature and the antipathy of colonial and post-colonial policies to such inclusive wisdom.
In his list of true activists are Scottish internationalist Patrick Geddes, who toured India early in the 20th century and provided a perceptive analysis of traditional wisdom working in support of sustainability, and how it could be usefully applied to urban planning and development; Radhakamal Mukherjee, a sociologist who reflected on the excessive extraction of natural capital through deforestation, mountain denudation, soil exhaustion, high levels of hunting for food and so on, leading to his `green charter' of eternal values; and J.C. Kumarappa, the foreign-educated accountancy professional who abandoned his practice to join Mahatma Gandhi to support a village-centric, predominantly agrarian and deeply humanistic economic model.
In his documentation of the socio-cultural uniqueness of Indian conservation movements, Guha presents people who take on a dishonest bureaucracy and swear by the community's commitment to nature. Among these campaigners are Gaura Devi at the vanguard of the Chipko revolution and in another era, Medha Patkar of the Narmada campaign. He pays glowing tribute to the "subaltern social ecology" of Chandi Prasad Bhatt, another Chipko pioneer and the scholarly Madhav Gadgil for his democratising influence on environmental thought and biodiversity conservation.
The book sweeps across the landscape of environmentalism not just in India but also in the United States. It might surprise some that the author places the environmental thought of Lewis Mumford above that of icons such as John Muir and Aldo Leopold. Unlike these "patron saints" of American environmentalism, Guha says, Mumford did not merely value primeval nature and biodiversity but focussed simultaneously on cultural diversity and relations within human society. He presciently saw the potential of solar energy even in the 1930s as a solution for a carbon-addicted society.
In most of the book, Guha expresses his unwavering support for a people-centric vision for natural spaces. It is convincing where it identifies the hypocrisy of mass consumption by a superficial `nature loving' elite.
His logic veers to the extreme, however, in the chapter titled "Authoritarianism in the Wild" in which conservation biologists generally stand accused of pursuing an elitist and misanthropic vision. These extremists with a sectarian agenda and a `trade union approach' seek to clear tribal people out of protected areas although they may have been living there "almost as long as perhaps the tigers." These `failings' of scientists are clubbed with the intolerance of the forest bureaucracy (with whom, ironically, the scientists have a running battle over research permissions) for allowing hotels and tourist swarms into the wild but not the tribal people.
Critique
The culminating chapter, which draws inspiration in part from John Kenneth Galbraith's questions in The Affluent Society, restores the book to more even keel and offers a sharp critique of carboniferous capitalism. Americans, he notes, discharge 20 times the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually compared to an Indian; the U.S. with 4.5 per cent of the world's population consumes nearly 30 per cent of all materials. What then, would the future look like if China and India adopt a consumptive growth model (one that Mahatma Gandhi dreaded would happen in his country) that is patterned after the West?
The environmental horrors of such a prospect can be explained merely by considering the question of car ownership. "Can there be a world with four billion cars, a China with 700 million cars, an India with 600 million," Guha asks. Obviously, even the most ardent proponents of scientific industrialism would find that impossible to manage.
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