Introduction
The preliminary level and the primary level
The green record of the Taliban
Engels and Manchester
The battery cage
Migration
Defence
The New Age
Status and self-esteem
Pond life
Green issues are a concern of mine, but the idiocies of so much green thinking are also a concern. A long time ago, a series of books was published which included the titles 'Objections to Christianity' (written by Christians) and 'Objections to Humanism' (written by Humanists). On this page there are 'Objections to the Green View,' written not by a green thinker or activist but by someone whose relationship with the movement is far from simple. First of all, matters of personal practice. The principle underlying this practice, it's fair to say, is a kind of green 'purism':
Personal transport
I've taken a flight only a few times and haven't flown anywhere for over thirty years. When I've travelled to European countries, more often than not I've travelled by coach, as, for example, when I travelled to Krakow in Poland not so long ago, I took the coach. The journey lasted just over 24 hours, and was no hardship. When I went to Athens, I took the train, a journey of 3 days, and when I went to Oslo, again I took the train, a journey of over 2 days. I have a van, the use of which I can justify. When I was working, I had a car but used it sparingly. I worked to and from work. As I learned to drive at the age of 40, I've walked far more, and made far more use of public transport, than many people (although, it's true, less than many others.)
Food transport and food miles
I have two allotments and grow a large proportion of my own food. I'm completely self-sufficient in fruit and almost self-sufficient in vegetables. The transportation of these amounts to far less than a food mile - a few hundred metres. An extensive section of this site is concerned with allotment gardening. I never buy imported foods, except for coffee and, on occasion, tomato products.
Reduction of packaging for food products
I never buy processed foods, except, occasionally, for tomato products: no cans of baked beans, no breakfast cereals, none of those things. I don't buy take-aways. Cooking is a significant interest. If I want to eat a pizza, I make it from the usual ingredients, flour and the rest. If I want fruit juice, I make apple juice, using a cider press. I never have any tins to dispose of, and very few cardboard boxes which need to be recycled. I brew beer in bulk and store it in bulk, avoiding the energy costs and pollution costs of manufacturing cans and bottles.
Recycling and composting
My paper, glass and metal waste is in very small amounts. I recycle all that can be recycled, of course. I have compost bins, generally five of them containing allotment waste at different stages of breakdown.
Lighting and heating
I make sure to turn off lights when they're not needed. I make sure that I wear enough indoors and the house is never over-heated. I don't have central heating and make use of waste wood (chopped with an axe and sawn) as a fuel.
I distinguish the preliminary level from the primary level. Recycling, energy conservation, avoidance of waste - these and other green practices are important but insufficient, important but not all-important. They belong to the preliminary level.
We visit a theatre, and find that it separates its waste water, so that 'grey' water isn't discharged into the sewers and wasted. Its energy conservation meets the highest contemporary standards. It's so well insulated that very little supplementary heating is needed. We visit a library, and it's exemplary too. But exemplary in what way? Exemplary in meeting green standards. Exemplary in its stock? That's a different matter altogether. The green activist in the role of activist isn't concerned in the least whether the stock is poor, insufficient and rubbishy. The activist in the role of activist isn't concerned in the least whether the theatre is adventurous or unadventurous. If it plays safe and puts on rubbish that at least is successful at the box-office, then it's a matter of no concern to the activist, in the role of activist. The same with a concert hall which programmes nothing but single movements and parts of movements from hackneyed works, and never ever takes a risk. But libraries, theatres and concert halls are like athletics stadiums and football stadiums in one way at least - strenuous activities, not lazy activities, should take place in them, even if there's a need for relaxation as well. The most important activities of a library, theatre or concert hall aren't at the preliminary level.
It's far easier to judge a book's environmental credentials than its content. Is it printed on recycled paper or unrecycled paper? It's easy to find out and approval or disapproval is mechanical. There's no mechanical method of estimating the book's content. Is the style hackneyed or cliched, is it emotionally rich or not, are there logical errors or errors of fact? These and other questions make vastly greater demands on knowledge and judgment.
This discussion hasn't so far presented the matter as starkly as it should. It has presented the preliminary level as an important stage in its own right, whilst pointing out that the green activist isn't concerned with the fuller level, or unconcerned in the role of activist. The preliminary level isn't necessarily a precondition. Magnificent works of art, to focus attention upon only one sphere of achievement, were created and presented under social conditions which were abysmal. They can certainly be created and presented in conditions which don't meet the best contemporary standards of recycling, reusing and the rest.
The most important issue of our age isn't climate change but the descent into moronic and mediocre ways of life and ways of thinking.
In actual fact, moronic ways of living, ways of thinking, ways of experiencing the world, consume vast amounts of the earth's resources. Industrial methods, apart from making products that are useful and essential, are also capable of churning out vast amounts of low-grade articles of commerce, including reading-matter and viewing-matter.
Words of a language can be used polemically. The use of green to mean 'immature, unsophisticated, or gullible' has become less common. Its use to mean 'enlightened as regards recycling, reusing and the conservation of the earth's resources in general' has become very much more common, of course, the most common meaning of the word now, together with its use for a colour. I see every reason for restoring the less common meaning, as a useful reminder to green-thinking people.
To emphasize green issues
without any attempt at factorization, to practise isolation
of green issues, is stupidity. The green record of a country is one
factor amongst many, and not the most important factor.
'The United Kingdom is one of the world's main ecological debtors, consuming
far more of the Earth's resources than we can contribute...Countries such
as Afghanistan, Somalia and Bangladesh are the leading ecological creditors,
using up far fewer resources per capita than the global average.' (Report
in The Times.) Afghanistan under the Taliban was an ecological creditor, Afghanistan
partly controlled now by the Taliban is an ecological creditor, present-day
Somalia, a war-torn failed state (where female genital-circumcision is widely
practised, where stoning to death still takes place, to mention just a few
abuses of human rights) is an ecological creditor. We can agree that countries
should reduce their environmental impact, but environmental impact should
be one factor in a complete survey.
A survey of countries ought to include far more than the country's environmental record. It ought to include its humanitarian achievements, its cultural and intellectual achievements, its technological achievements, the 'civic virtues' which support a mature democracy, support for good causes by fund-raising, publication of books, magazines, newsletters and Web-sites, a high level of critical discourse - the constructive criticism of people, organizations and ideas. Some of these activities cause next to no pollution, make little or no contribution to climate change, use practically none of the earth's resources, but many of them do.
I quote from Edmund Wilson's 'To the Finland Station,' where he describes Engels' experience of Manchester, 'the infernal abysses of the city:'
'He saw the working people living like rats in the wretched little dens of their dwellings, whole families, sometimes more than one family, swarming in a single room, well and diseased, adults and children, close relations sleeping together, sometimes even without beds to sleep on when all the furniture had been sold for firewood, sometimes in damp, underground cellars which had to be bailed out when the weather was wet, sometimes living in the same room with the pigs; ill-nourished on flour mixed with gypsum and cocoa mixed with dirt, poisoned by ptomaine from tainted meat, doping themselves and their wailing children with laudanum; spending their lives, without a sewage system, among the piles of their excrement and garbage; spreading epidemics of typhus and cholera which even made inroads into the well-to-do sections.'
It would be very mistaken to interpret this passage about suffering during the Industrial Revolution as an indictment of industrialisation itself, or to claim that the most important factor during the industrial revolution - the factor given pre-{ordering} - was pollution of the environment. If green-minded people can read the passage above and feel greater indignation about the pollution of the environment than the human suffering of the time, then they are lacking in compassion. In my experience, compassion in these people is very often carefully rationed. 'If they hadn't polluted the environment, none of this would have happened...' (But see my remarks about compassion in the page on Industry.)
Of course, rural squalor was comparable, if less intense, but of course industrialisation was the means of ending 'inhuman squalor' in both the cities and the countryside. Inhuman squalor is unbearable squalor - the kind in which human excrement is difficult or impossible to dispose of and in which typhus and cholera flourish. The squalor which blighted the landscape as a result of industrialisation was squalor of a different kind, one which for all its disadvantages began, slowly and surely, to release most of the population from inhuman squalor.
It's a commonplace that the provision of clean drinking water and the proper disposal of sewage have had a far greater effect on human mortality and morbidity than any medical advances. These have required advances in the conquest of nature. 'Working with nature' is sometimes possible but often impossible, if inhuman squalor is to be avoided. (The falsity of the green opinion that nature is benign should be obvious.) In Victorian times, the construction of sewers and reservoirs involved back-breaking work, inhuman work. Now, with the benefit of bulk materials handling, earth-moving machinery, PVC pipes, and so many other developments - all an aspect of the conquest of nature, we can enjoy the benefits of industrialisation.
Modern civilization, with achievements beyond praise, has its dirty secrets and its horrors. One of them is the battery cage system, suppliers of eggs to most schools and hospitals and other public and private institutions in the country.
It would be a very unusual green-thinking person who bought battery chicken eggs. (Less unusual is to overlook battery chicken eggs in convenience foods and take-away foods.) The Green Party has enlightened policies on animal welfare. All the same, policies are not enough. To attend to one thing is not to attend to others. To devote to a cause the time and energy needed to have a chance of success is difficult. There's evidence that many green activists and politicians fail to give enough attention to this matter of animal welfare. To act against the battery cage and other practices of factory farming on purely environmental grounds (issues to do with feeding fishmeal or soya meal, for instance) would be to overlook the central point: that this is a moral issue, to do with the infliction of suffering, the denial of the opportunity for animals to exercise instincts. Compare the argument I give in the section above, Engels and Manchester. Again, suffering and the elimination or reduction of suffering are factors which should be given {ordering} prior to any environmental objections.
Councils throughout the country have never been more concerned with reducing, reusing and recycling, but most of them have done nothing about the cruelty inflicted by their purchasing policies. A large proportion of Councillors are concerned about recycling and the other green issues. The proportion shocked by the fact that free-range eggs aren't used in Council canteens is far, far smaller. Awareness of green issues can go hand in hand with indifference to cruelty. The exceptions, though, are very significant and very heartening. Forty-one Councils have decided to buy only barn or free-range eggs. They include Croydon Council, Hampshire County Council, Wirral Council, Shropshire County Council and Halton Borough Council. The others (such as Sheffield) I refer to as 'Backward British Councils' (BBC).
Compare and contrast these with Microsoft. From 'Farm Animal Voice,' published by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF):
'Microsoft UK's Head of Facilities and Property, Nicholas Willis, was shocked to realise that his company was not using free-range eggs in its canteens.
'When CIWF called him to check on their policy, he was sure they were already cage-free. But after making all the necessary enquiries he realised they weren't and quickly set about rectifying things.
'It is so refreshing to see animal welfare being taken seriously by a company that isn't directly connected with the food industry.'
Migration Watch calls for stringent limits to immigration to this country. The page 'Outline of the Problem' summarizes very well the reasons for limiting immigration:
http://www.migrationwatchuk.com/outline_of_the_problem.asp
Many of these reasons should appeal forcefully to people with green concerns. This country is grotesquely overcrowded. The building work needed to house immigrants has a severe impact on the environment. The policies of the Green Party in this country amount to a complete failure to address the problem. There are very substantial reasons why green activists should support the objectives of Migration Watch, but, of course, this would harm their self-image, one which is based on evasion. It's ridiculous to assume that only people with extreme right-wing views support strict limits to immigration. I loathe, of course, the British National Party. The reasons for limiting immigration given by Migration Watch are rational, supported by evidence and very important ones.
What of non-economic migrants, such as people fleeing persecution or war? I see every reason for admitting - welcoming - human rights defenders in real danger of death or torture in their own countries. I don't think it's at all realistic to admit significant numbers of those who want to escape war, just as it's not realistic to admit significant numbers of those fleeing famine. If 5 million people are at risk of death from war or famine in a country, then the problem has to be addressed within the country. The assumption that victims of war, or injustice, are always inherently virtuous has to be resisted. They may be fundamentalist fanatics, without the least understanding of the qualities needed to sustain a healthy democracy and no asset at all to this country.
My views in this one area are markedly different from some policies of Amnesty International. Human rights are a strong interest of mine and have been for a very long time. I was a member of Amnesty International for a very long time. I've helped to raise a considerable amount of money for Amnesty International, including the basic method - standing with a collecting tin in all weathers. I've written a large number of letters about abuses of human rights. I've been the driving force behind motions at the Annual General Meeting, and addressed Annual General Meetings to argue the case for some of these motions, and all of them were passed overwhelmingly - on such varied themes as anti-personnel mines, ways of campaigning more effectively against human rights abuse in China, ways of improving campaigning techniques in general.
I left Amnesty International because it was changing fast, and not, I thought, for the better. I think there's evidence that Amnesty International is now a less prominent and effective organization than it used to be but it remains an organization very much to be admired. Its humanitarian benefits are incalculable.
A green-thinking gardener who is very energetic in digging, transporting compost and manure, in all aspects of gardening, may be mentally lazy, unwilling to make an effort in matters that aren't connected with gardening.
Very often, people have their 'speciality' and devote so much time and energy to acquiring knowledge of the speciality, practising its skills and keeping up with the latest developments. This is no guarantee that what they have to say about the speciality will always reflect this thorough and extensive preparation, but at least they have made the effort. But of course, people's opinions aren't concerned just with the speciality. They usually have opinions about many other things, where their preparation may be completely inadequate. It's perfectly possible for someone to come to instinctive conclusions about an issue which fuller knowledge would support, but it's also perfectly possible for someone to give naive, unthinking support to positions which fuller investigation would reveal as ridiculous.
Green 'thinking' has a strong (but not invariable) linkage with pacifism but I focus attention on the need to investigate the issues of war, pacifism, defence very thoroughly. I see little evidence that people who have investigated thoroughly organic methods, recycling and the rest are willing to make a sustained effort in investigating these issues of war, pacifism and defence.
In fact, this isn't only a matter of acquiring information. 'Green people' are often people of good-will, not at all ruthless or cruel. They are psychologically unable to grasp the ruthlessness and cruelty of a Hitler, Himmler, Stalin or Beria. Unfortunately, if kindly, pacifist views became far more widespread, it's likely that the world wouldn't become far more kindly but that people who are anything but kindly would dominate the world far more easily.
'Green people,' though, aren't always so very kindly. There's sometimes a linkage between green views and very authoritarian views such as fascist views. Green people may view other people as pests not so different from garden pests. Philip Conford's book 'Origins of the Organic Movement' is a valuable guide to this, and many other, aspects of the organic movement. One of his main arguments is that the early movement had strong links to extreme right wing views. For example, Jorian Jenks, who was editor of the Soil Association journal Mother Earth from the time it was founded until 1963 actively supported the British Union of Fascists. He gives information about a secret society which supported organic farming but also opposed foreign influences supposed to be harmful, such as Judaism.
Green people who don't share in the least these extreme delusions may still have lesser delusions. If they want to be taken seriously when they speak about matters of war and defence, they should be able to give informed and realistic answers to questions such as these (and the familiar practices of organic gardening and farming, recycling and energy saving are no use in answering them):
There are many, many people with green commitment who are immune to new age delusions, who see no necessary linkage between composting, building with straw bales or cob, and the rest - and runes, extravagant claims for the spiritual powers of trees, claims that all animals are equal (slugs and nematodes the equal of Mozart.) For green people with a defective sense of reality, the cosmic sphere is particularly congenial. And there are green people who are realistic in one sphere - they recognize the harsh realities of the land, the weather, the limits imposed by the natural world - and credulous in other spheres, recognizing hardly any limits to their delusions.
The green movement has achievements that anyone can respect and admire. The harnessing of alternative energy sources often requires massive, sophisticated engineering, particularly, perhaps, the harnessing of wave power. These are the achievements of engineers with green interests rather than of green activists. These people are more active at the level of 'intermediate technology,' and again, their achievements can be respected and admired. Such organizations as the Centre for Alternative Technology and community composting schemes work at this level.
As for the ordinary green-minded person who recycles, re-uses, reduces consumption of materials and energy (and I'm one of them), this is fine, but these activities alone shouldn't enhance anyone's status, except marginally. They require negligible skill, knowledge or personal qualities. They shouldn't be a main source of a person's sense of self-esteem. They aren't activities which need take up more than a fraction of the day.
Tom Moss has a view of human life which is limited and demeaning, like the views of so many other green (immature, unsophisticated or gullible) people. This is a short letter of his which was published in 'The Times:'
'Magnus Linklater claims,
inter alia, that "the one species whose survival is essential" is
man (Sept 24). This overlooks the fact that for 99 per cent of the world's
history, when Man did not exist, it survived perfectly satisfactorily and
that, during the tiny sliver of time during which Man has existed, he has
caused increasing ecological chaos.
'Surely Mr Linklater should have said "the one species whose survival
is superfluous is man".'
Tom Moss, Camberley, Surrey
This is the Green view of humanity as nothing but polluters, destructive, despoilers, not a green view of humanity which recognizes that some pollution and damage to the environment are unavoidable. Even the simple act of walking causes some damage. Multiplied many times it leads to erosion. The massive pollution of the environment which occurred when burning coal was the main source of energy is nothing to be ashamed of in the least. It was inevitable. Tom Moss no doubt showers in warm water, drinks hot coffee not cold coffee, often eats hot food and not just raw food, heats his house or flat in cold weather, doesn't only travel on horseback and makes use of many, many articles which require large amounts of energy to manufacture. During the industrial revolution, the main fuel used to achieve all these desirable ends was coal.
His green view seems not to be one which recognizes the magnitude of the problem but is concerned with intelligent and practical action to reduce pollution and damage and which recognizes that often, high technology is the only way to achieve this. This is a green view which denigrates human achievement and treats humanity as on the same level as pond life. To call Tom Moss 'Tom (Pond Life) Moss should be quite a compliment to him. What could be less damaging to the environment than pond life?
After doing a little research, I find that someone called Tom Moss of Camberwell is interested in diving, which is reliant upon modern technology for its equipment and for transporting people to the places that interest divers. I wonder if the diver and the letter-writer are the same person. If they are, it may be that he confines his diving to swimming down to the bottom of the local boating lake without the aid of any equipment, causing minimal environmental damage.
His view is, of course, based on a grotesquely limited survey. It has linkages with a Christian view of humanity as sinners, responsible for all the suffering and imperfections of the world, a view which blames humanity rather than the Creator for smallpox, cholera and all the other deficiencies of the world.
When humanity began to use fire for cooking, to give some warmth and cheer in cold rain, sleet and snow, and later for heating in stoves, then wood was used as the fuel. In the developing world, of course, wood is still used on a massive scale. To blame humanity for the fact that the people who chop down trees for these purposes are causing environmental damage is deranged. It would be no more rational to blame humanity for the chemical reactions which occur when wood is burned, releasing some polluting compounds. What are the poor who have no alternatives to the use of wood to do? Stop using it? By using intermediate technology, at least it's possible to make the burning of wood more efficient. When charcoal was used for the production of iron and later steel, it was to make tools and implements which were indispensable for cultivation, the construction of buildings and other uses. The fact that burning charcoal gives off pollutants was no fault of humanity. Later, charcoal was largely replaced by another polluting fuel, coal, vital for transporting people, goods and food, for pumping drinking water, and for any number of other uses - ones which were vital and not luxuries. Waterwheels which powered flour mills used a renewable resource, but when the water level was low, they were useless. Steam engines gave a guaranteed source of power. Back-breaking agricultural work was reduced by the introduction of steam powered machinery.
The industrial revolution led to suffering on an enormous scale but eventually the benefits were far more important. In the celebrated phrase of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, life in a state of nature was 'nasty, brutish and short.' A partial conquest over nature was essential to free humanity from a Malthusian existence where life was shortened by famine and disease, where winter was dreaded and survival was always in doubt. Science and technology have also helped to loosen the grip of superstition, although new forms of superstition are constantly being born, such as the various 'green superstitions.' But the benefits of science and technology are generally taken for granted, as if they are provided naturally and not by ingenuity, creativity and immensely difficult, patient work.
Of course, science and technology are also responsible for overpopulation and overpopulation causes immense damage to the environment. Even environmental fantasists know, surely, that the reason why population is so high is because humanity has been freed from the harsh facts which govern populations in natural conditions: the early death of most offspring, the death of so many young adults and middle-aged adults. As for the future and future dangers, the only starting point available is our present starting point. Speculations like those of Tom (Pond Life) Moss which wish away humanity are of no use at all: pure self-indulgence.
The practical objections to his views are only the start. Practical achievements aren't the only ones which have raised humanity so far above the level of pond life. A very short list of practical achievements and other achievements which reflects, very, very inadequately, some of my own interests from an inexhaustible list of possibilities:
Rembrandt: Isaac and Rebecca (The Jewish Bride). Vermeer, 'The Geographer.' The fan vaulting, the whole interior, of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Mozart, the Quintet 'Di scrivermi ogni giorno' and the Trio 'Soave sia il vento' from 'Cosi fan Tutte.' Beethoven, the 'Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesen an die Gottheit,' from the Quartet Opus 132. Quantum Theory. Newton and Leibniz and calculus. Linear algebra and topology. Symbolic logic. Huntsman's process for crucible steel. Brunel's work in tunnelling. Human goodness: Nelson Mandela and Raoul Wallenberg, who saved Jews in Budapest.
I don't like such lists at all, but this list doesn't, I think, have the crassness of 'the world's 10 best books' or 'the 10 best paintings.' I make an exception here. Other people would arrive at different lists, and I could easily put together any number of very different lists, but they would all make it clear that whereas pond life has failed to achieve anything beyond mere survival and reproduction, humanity has achieved very much more. For more on the contrast between physical survival and values, in an unexpected context, see the page on smoking.
