A Reluctant Environmentalist

As per the Merriam Webster dictionary, an “environmentalist is an advocate of environmentalism or the one concerned about environmental quality especially of the human environment with respect to the control of pollution”.

Suddenly environmentalism is hot. Many double income young couples want to switch to vegan diet. School children in private (and expensive) schools want to do more community based green projects to build their CVs. Environment has also become infectious in the start-up community when business plans are to be written depicting positive impact on the environment. Sustainability is now a fashion and has become a regular talk in many cocktail parties in South Mumbai.  Read my blog on Environmentalist at a cocktail party just for fun.

For years I have resisted the “environmentalist” label as it talks more about the advocacy and less on individual action. I normally hurriedly clarify that I am an environmental scientist or engineer so that I am neither “here” or “there”. But in the process, I have also begun to judge my own environmental credentials. I see that my tendency is to filter public issues through my private world and then circle back out into the public for advice. So my Professor friend feels that I do qualify to the title of an environmentalist.

According to him, most people, including him, do not bring change in our own behaviour, although we “know”, as we are essentially “reluctant” environmentalists. He defines a reluctant environmentalist as someone who understands the challenges to our planet but does not take or participate in action.

We both were in the car and were travelling to attend a global conference on sustainability at one of the most expensive 7 star hotels in Mumbai.

Many are convinced that this planet is on the red alert but at the same time they feel lazy for a behavioural change. You may wake up if you read books such as End of Nature by Bill McKibben (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Nature ) that detailed the dangers of global warming twenty years before it was the buzz. But then that awakening may be just for a while.

Unfortunately, there are a large number of people who rationalize that one person alone will not make a difference. So why me?  We also see less leaders in our communities, in business and in governance who are powerful, intelligent, sophisticated, and who have a strong environmentalist voice and most importantly, who demand action.

Many believe that to transform from red to green in your life is to start by acting on plastic bags. Millions of barrels of oil each year are used to make 100 billion plastic bags in the United States alone. Most of those bags end up in landfills, where they will resist to biodegrade causing dangerous long term impact on the environment.

Why talk first about plastic bags? Because they are all around us, and we see them everywhere. They are an easy place to start and can indeed be a good first step. Unfortunately, some start early but give up later if they don’t get noticed enough or they fail in influencing others. So we do need them to be recognized and awarded so that their plastic waste cleanup activities continue. Of course, the environmental sceptics continue their criticism that what difference will it make by just one day of beach cleaning! But perhaps they forget that you do this just once but with social media you can become a hero for 365 days!  Do read my blog “A Skeptical Environmentalist”

But the latest news on the environment, are on tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint, both locally and globally. That’s the next step to plastic. Soon there will be smart watches who will prepare a carbon foot print report of your daily life apart from counting your heart beats and checking your target of 10000 steps! Welcome to the world transiting from environmentalism to “green carbonism”.

Most people believe that doing what is right for the environment may cost more money. And why should you pay this extra cost. Let others do it. You hear words like

Buying organic foods doesn’t matter…it’s a scam to fleece your money.

Don’t give money to environmentally committed charity—they spend too much money on overhead instead of their programs.

Oh an Environmental activist? You’re just another tree hugger…an illogical extremist without common sense.

Response to these questions or embedded “negativism” is not easy. Sensitivity to environment and taking on responsibility for its protection individually is so hard to ingrain.

Perhaps root of the solution is in our culture, our value system and our family upbringing. Further, mentoring by school teachers does matter and so the way school curricula is designed. Getting connected or exposed to leadership in the college days can also create a great impact. When you get introduced to inspiring personalities who look at greater good, you think about going beyond individual expectations and unknowingly cross the boundaries.

Professor lighted his cigar. I lowered the glass of the window in the car.

He added that we need to learn how to make the right choices, especially on what we produce and what we consume. Multicriteria decision making (MCDM) in our day to day living is seldom taught (and here he sounded too much of an academic). He continued.

Do I really need to buy that imported apple from Australia in the supermarket? Do I follow car-pooling option instead of buying my own car? Do I look for repairing my electronic gadget first, instead of declaring it as a waste? You may now ask whether acquiring something will add value to your life in a meaningful way. By the way, have you heard about “Buy Nothing Day”? Read my blog here.

I strongly believe that “Life Cycle Thinking (LCT)” can play a major role in application of a responsible MCDM. If you understand LCT and get convinced, then there is a strong possibility that there will indeed be a behavioural change. And LCT here does not mean just use of a jargon and to make the concept look too complicated. A story telling approach may just work. Read my blog Sad Story of a Droplet  and you will then never make wasteful use of water. You need to bring in LCT as a nudge towards action.

Some argue that there is no such thing as an individual action. There is statistics (don’t ask me how reliable is this source) that an average person influences approximately 10,000 people in lifetime. Of course it is up to you to decide if your influence will be positive or negative! But if this is indeed true then my actions do make a difference, because my actions can potentially become our actions. Sorry I am becoming way too optimistic here.

By now, we reached the conference hall. The meeting was about to begin. Professor took one good look at the audience.

There were around 150 professionals sitting there – many of them were environmental policy makers and regulators, chief sustainability officers, environmental NGOs, professors and researchers as well as environmental lawyers. All very learned souls who knew a lot about the sustainability related challenges this planet is facing.

Well, well Dr Modak, Professor said with a smile “What a great collection of reluctant environmentalists!”. I thought that this was quite a rash statement, but then I didn’t have much confidence to defend. Moreover I didn’t know if he had said this in all humour or was it the usual sarcastic remark.

Do all people who attend sustainability conferences belong to the class of reluctant environmentalists? Well, if this was not the case then the world would have changed for the better long ago!

I leave answer to this question to my readers.

Cover page is taken from https://medium.com/@aimanhassani/theres-no-such-thing-as-laziness-535fd56acec9

This post has been inspired by the blog https://www.coveadvisors.com/confessions-of-a-reluctant-environmentalist/ at the website of cove continuity advisors