Environmental Arrogance and Delusion

If you have ever had a conversation with an environmentalist, you can narrow down two distinctive types: those who honestly and purposefully believe that nature has intrinsic value (independent of what it may do for human beings) or that nature is instrumentally valuable (that it is worth protecting for prudential reasons). Both these camps of people assume there is something wrong going on with the current state of the environment and the way in which human changes have altered our natural world. However, it is my opinion that whether or not one views nature as being either instrumentally or intrinsically valuable is an irrelevant difference, for at the end of it all it is still an arrogant, self-righteous, and wholly anthropocentric position to concern oneself with.

I base this judgment on the simple fact that human beings see themselves as having unique qualities (typically rationality) that somehow places them above all other creatures in the world, and this is perhaps most interesting on behalf of the intrinsic environmentalist who claims to see value in nature in and of itself. But, to be concerned over the environment is not in itself something that is sporadic nor spontaneous, but is really a matter of concern for those that have everything satisfied in the material sense, and hold the view that it is through human faculties of reason to address the problems we're responsible; but only those symptoms that don't really address the problem. Most people will never be serious environmentalists, it's not that difficult a problem to envision either. Most people seem only interested in slightly curbing their consumptive practices when prudence, not morality, convinces them to do so. My point here is that human beings exhibit relatively the same behavior, and that the difference between the varying schools of environmentalism and how the problem is to be resolved (save perhaps on solution) is only a quantitative difference (rather than qualitative) dependent upon factors for which individuals have no control over.

To substantiate my initial claim, we need only look at the billion years of the planet Earth and how it has dealt with these problems before; in fact, we should clarify our concerns for what they really are: we're concerned about our relative comfort on this planet, and at the base level, at least our own existence. The environment as we experience it now is not static, it is always changing - including our own meager existence. Human beings, since the beginning of their time as a species on this planet, have invoked numerous and drastic changes on the environment, but so too have other species that have existed (and consequently gone extinct). The planet Earth existed long before human beings ever came along, and it may be reasonably expected that it will continue to do so well after we as a species go extinct. This is neither controversial nor irrelevant; for, the destruction of an entire planet (a planet which in the scheme of the infinitude of the universe really is only significant to our species) is more than likely not going to be destroyed from within, rather, some other destructive cause or event from outside the solar system (or possibly within) will be largely responsible.

What this means, is that we really aren't concerned about nature as something that has intrinsic value - because such intrinsic value as we conceive it is dependent upon our own existence to recognize such value. So, in many ways, the intrinsic environmentalist is really no different than the instrumental environmentalist: both have (at the foundation of their concern) a predisposition towards the perpetuating existence of human beings as a species, and varying degrees of concern over their relative comfort on this planet. For, the concern over global warming, radioactive waste pollution, the destruction of our atmospheric protections from the harmful effects of our own sun, and so on, all address the problem of maintaining conditions necessary for human (and probably most --if not all-- species') survival. Thus, the instrumentalist and the intrinsic environmentalists are not at odds really, one is simply more obvious and the other more delusional (respectively).

It should be noted here that concern for our species' survival is not at all a bad thing, nor would I recommend our ignoring our effects since we do have an evolutionary predisposition for the reproduction of our own genetic makeup which perpetuates our species, but also because as human beings with some capability of becoming aware of our surroundings that we probably ought to do things differently. The point though, is that we really have to accept some major flaws within our species: that we are essentially a very arrogant and presumptuous one. The anthropocentric problem really isn't a problem, it's just one that few people are willing to admit because they enjoy the self-righteousness of feeling committed to the cause of another (in this case, the entire planet Earth). But, the geological, biological, and meteorological history of the planet Earth indicates it is not the Earth that will suffer, rather, the living things (particularly us delicate human beings) that must fight for our survival.

I do think the cause of such arrogance is particularly grounded in Western society; a society that has flooded the minds of all its inhabitants with the material necessities well beyond that needed for sustenance. Some actually have to struggle on a daily basis (yes, even in the superfluous West) to maintain a minimal level of sustenance satisfaction, but these people don't seem to make up the mainstream environmentalist movement. Rather, it is the petty-bourgeois and upper levels of the working class who achieve relative success in the material world, but have become alienated to varying degrees from how they feel their lives should be lived, and attach to it some cause that is expected to give their life some transcendent meaning. You can tell these people apart, whether or not they are intrinsic or instrumental environmentalists is of no concern, because they talk constantly of "going green," buying hybrid automobiles, talk publicly about how much danger the "envionment" is in and how much energy could be saved if we all switched to a particular brand of light-bulb that is more efficient. That is all well and good, but it really doesn't address anything and the problem will continue.

The ironic thing that only the most radical elements of the environmentalist movement seems to realize is that human beings are the number one threat to their own existence and survival. Thus, what we need is not simply ameliorating or bandaging the symptoms as we see them (which again, is convenient within our accepted framework of consumptive practices), rather, we need to change the practices altogether and restrict the two main problems: human beings and their consumption. It's best to look at the planet Earth as various ecosystem's with varying carrying capacities - and it can be understood that the human population exceeding 6 billion people has gone well beyond these varying carrying capacities, and as more people are globalized into consuming at the rate of the American people (the planet's most outrageous consumers) then the problem will only get worse, and it is our species that will suffer the most. What we need then is to abandon the arrogance and delusions of trying to place band-aids on the gaping wounds that are the result from our overpopulation and over-consumption, and realize that we are most concerned with our own survival, and the only means of solving this survival problem is population and economic control. Anthropocentric solutions are not morally wrong, they are perfectly legitimate. Focusing them on the correct problems will have direct consequences that benefit all species, including our own. The planet will exist with or without human beings or any life-forms for that matter; we need to stop deceiving ourselves and accept our own place in the natural history of this planet.