Green Greed
Last Tuesday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) elected Hoseung Lee of South Korea as its chairman. The New York Times noted the decision was “apt” and reflective of today’s increasingly globalized world. In selecting Lee, the IPCC recognized the ongoing infrastructural growth of Asia and thus the continent’s expanding influence upon both the climate and climatological discourse of the future. Yet it is Lee’s academic qualifications, not his ethnicity, which should be truly highlighted by his appointment. The new chairman of the IPCC brings to the table an oft-underrepresented authority in the green movement: a background in economics.
Historically, the study of economics has been an unbloodied blade in the environmental activist’s arsenal. Sociology, and in particular its number-crunching aspects, have been routinely curtailed by environmentalists as vulgar examinations of the general public. Instead, the archetypical “tree-hugger” wields the more poignant instruments of ethos and pathos to convey his messages. “Witness this destruction,” he may cry, “A redwood here, an entire rainforest there; none of you may have held the hatchet, and yet all had a hand in cutting down these trees!” This kind of impassioned rhetoric has naturally led to normative, not positive, policy-proposals. Ethics, morality and human emotion will only get one as far as a mirage of what the world “should” be, a utopia. Such an approach is nothing but a dilettante’s; in protesting the shipbreaking industry of Chittagong, activists would be surprised that a Bangladeshi yard-worker cares more about his wages than the ecological ramifications of his industry.
Despite the failures of their sentiment-based crusades, traditional environmentalists, or idealists, still find it hard to embrace the utility of economics. Their aversion is partly anti-capitalistic, and partly the product of excessive romanticism. Katy Lederer of The New Yorker summarized this attitude perfectly in her report on a recent Climate Group conference, where high-profile attendees agreed to divest their holdings from fossil fuels. Although recognizing the optimism of this event, Lederer noted, “It can be…uncanny, to listen to investors speak in a capitalist patois about solutions to an existential problem.” Unease, and even revulsion, are common responses among environmentalists regarding the free market’s relationship with their cause. In general, idealists seem fundamentally disgusted by the free market itself and by the notion that wealth should be distributed by a covenant of greed, rather than fraternity. Among other things, idealists have made a temple out of humanity, and man’s selfishness seems a sacrilege against this paragon. Furthermore, environmentalists are frustrated by humanity constantly bending to the whim of its greed, almost as if it were a natural law, when the threat of climate change looms so real and threatening. Accordingly, a great deal of 21st century environmentalism has shirked the expertise of economists, whom it has correctly identified as the disciples of said greed.
Perhaps there exists some justification for the eco-idealist’s contempt for the capitalist system. Over the decades, many socialists have devotedly padded their cause with ecological arguments to suit the times. Their logic usually assumes a form as follows. At the transactional level, capitalism is only able to consider two parties: the buyer and the seller. It cannot macroscopically take into account the third party effects, or externalities, of an economy comprising billions of such transactions. This is problematic because a microeconomic exchange, such as someone buying a car, can induce a societal cost, such as increased carbon emissions, without the capitalist system correcting for that incongruity. When coupled with the Marxist portrayal of capitalism as a fundamentally invasive system, this argument provides a damning critique on whether the free market can ever be reconciled with Mother Nature.
Capitalism, in its current form, may indeed be at a crossroads with the green crusade. But let us accord capitalism its due credit for what it strives to be: an application for greed and a societal yoke for the individual pursuit of separate interests. The free market is theoretically dispassionate about things other than wealth. It is not a killer, nor the environment its target. Instead of malice, I see in capitalism only an aloof desire to reap profit. Up to now, it has been agreeable to do so via environmentally-destructive methods. In the future that may change, and in my opinion, will change.
Unfortunately, this concession too is lost on the environmental romanticist described previously, who thinks himself too highbrow to even consult the guiding principle of the economy: greed. This is a curious habit, a phenomenon which applies, I believe, to people in general. For despite being fundamentally greedy creatures, people have a capricious tendency to insist that they are not. So much so, that readers of my op-eds have often called me pessimistic for revealing humans as selfish. People are made uncomfortable by their primal nature, and attempt to avoid it by labeling its admission as cynical or grotesque. I am not a cynic; I am just honest.
How could one possibly discount the power of greed? Greed is everything: it dictates all our decisions, our ambitions, and by extension our lives. Its omnipresence and omniscience is such that if I were not an atheist, I would find the existence of a God of Greed highly plausible. Correspondingly, it is an obscenity that environmentalism as a movement, for so long, has neglected to address greed before softer realities such as personal morality. Not everyone may be ethical, but everyone is selfish. To suggest otherwise is not only arrogant but a denial of the human condition.
By acknowledging the utility of greed, and engaging in dialogue with economic expertise, climate change can be approached as it was always meant to be. The IPCC’s election of Lee, an economist, is a step in the right direction. The future of environmentalism must be one that is economically viable. This is possible given the right catalysts, as well as an honest understanding of human nature. For example, Lee has stated that he is a proponent of the carbon tax. This initiative aims to tax carbon, a negative externality, in order to internalize the cost of pollution within the price of commercial goods. With this regulation in place, the market is made cognizant of nature’s limits, such that demand for expensive, environmentally-damaging products should decrease. Via artificial stimuli, it is quite possible for conservationists to make “green” appealing to “greed.”
Henceforth, the question should not be, “How can we make the public sympathize with our cause?” Instead, lest the public respond with its usual apathy and lethargy, we must ask, “How can we make environmentalism profitable?” Before an appeal to morality, we should appeal to personal industry. Such an attitude may be crass, but then again, so is humanity. ♥