[1] With the publication of Silent Spring in 1962,
Rachel Carson launched environmental issues into the public
consciousness and wider political debate. Carson, a
scientist, expressed concern over the adverse impact of the
widespread use of chemicals and the common assumption that such
uses were safe. She argued that these chemicals - including
the some 500 pesticides in use at the time - were having a deadly
impact on life, affecting ground water, soil, songbirds, fish,
animals, and people's nervous systems. Carson prophetically
concluded,
We stand now where two roads
diverge . . . The road we long have been travelling is
deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with
great speed, but at its end lies disaster .... the other less
travelled by offers our last, our only chance to reach a
destination that assures the preservation of our
earth.1
[2] Rachel Carson made "ecology" a household word. She summoned
the scientific community and society to consider the bigger picture
and its implications for the future of the earth community. And
most importantly, she heralded the beginning of a shift in thinking
about the place of the environment in the calculation of our social
choices.
[3] Now forty years later, we are still standing at that same
fork in the road with much larger implications and consequences
facing the earth community. Climate change, biodiversity, the
impact of biotechnology, resource extraction, the devastation of
forests, in addition to continuing pollution and a host of other
issues, have raised the stakes considerably. We might do well
to ask if the last forty years has taught us anything regarding how
to treat the environment.
[4] In some areas we have come a long way. Public
consciousness has been raised and there are many private and public
initiatives- too numerous to mention here - that have been put in
place and enjoy widespread public support. Certainly we have
witnessed a "greening" of just about everything. However, the
era of economic globalization has not meant substantial changes in
the fundamental economic assumptions that govern much of the public
discussion. To the contrary, they may even be accelerating the
threats to the environment. Ironically, while many leaders
profess to be more ecologically friendly, the ecological crisis
seems to loom larger than ever for the public.
[5] Globalization is the driving imperative of our time.
In discussing the impact of globalization on the public discourse
about the environment, I will assume the narrower view of economic
globalization often referred to as the "Washington
Consensus."2 This
form of globalization, with its reliance on an open market that
relentlessly pursues economic growth and development, has had a
most pervasive impact on people, communities, societies, and even
our way of thinking. Others have documented the impact of some of
these economic policies on the environment. I will focus on
three consequences that I believe, ensue from this economic
paradigm that are forcing societies to continue down the
superhighway of which Carson warned; treating the environment as an
externality, privatising aspects of the ecological commons that
should remain public, and the commodification of elements of earth
community that should remain beyond market transactions.
These are also dominant chords in the public conversation from
those committed to economic globalization.
[6] One consequence of economic globalization has been to treat
the environment as an "externality." Environmental
considerations remain outside of the market calculation and
therefore have no economic cost or price attached. Some
leaders argue, for example, that it is only with a growing economy
that we can then "afford" to put in place public environmental
programs. Much of the business opposition to the Kyoto
Protocol for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions argues that
signing on to the Kyoto Protocol would be too expensive and might
even cause a downturn in the economy, making it impossible to
support the positive steps already undertaken. Public concern
and pressure has meant that there are efforts to internalise more
and more of these environmental costs, forcing governments and
business to add them to the balance sheet. However,
governments still prefer a less obligatory means for internalising
environmental impacts. For example, the Clinton Administration
proposed a rather weak environmental side agreement to the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Similarly businesses opt for
voluntary codes of conduct rather than regulations.
[7] The second consequence of economic globalization is the
drive to privatise aspects of the ecological commons that should
remain public. Enshrining private property rights is a key policy
objective of advocates of economic globalization. This has
resulted in the privatisation of public services as well as public
resources, most notably water, forests, and energy resources.
The priority of profit over the public interest is also becoming a
major issue with the inclusion of investor-state mechanisms in
trade agreements. For example, under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA,
corporations have gained the right to sue governments for the loss
of profits and overturn the ability of governments to enact
measures out protect human health and the environment. The Canadian
Conference of Catholic Bishops has pointed to a number of cases
where corporations have overturned government decisions to prohibit
dangerous substances such as the gasoline additive MMT or PCBs or
efforts to safeguard access to safe drinking water and were awarded
millions of dollars as well.3
[8] The third consequence is the commodification of elements of
earth community that more appropriately should remain beyond market
transactions. While similar to privatisation, commodification
differs in that it brings into the open market system those aspects
of life that were previously considered personal, collective or
sacred. Commodification is often advanced with the justification
that these are intellectual property rights.
There have been well publicized examples of pharmaceutical and seed
companies seeking patents for medicines and seeds based on the
traditional knowledge of Aboriginal peoples. Indigenous communities
understand such knowledge as given by the Creator to be held in
trust for the benefit of all people, not mere commodities for
sale. Commodification is also advanced in the marketing of
the new biotechnologies. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada
upheld the decision by Canada's Commissioner of Patents not to
allow Harvard University to obtain a Canadian patent on the
"oncomouse" so named because of its use in cancer research. Harvard
would in effect, own a multi-cellular life form.
[9] Generally, these three chords continue to dominate the way
the public discussion is organized. Together they present an
overwhelming confidence that society can address specific
environmental problems by harnessing the capital, energy, and
innovation of the private sector. While ameliorating some of
the environmental destruction, this market-driven approach will not
be able to redress the deeper breach that drives the continuing
ecological crisis - the inadequate worldview offered by
neoclassical economics. In many ways we are still standing at
the same fork in the road described by Carson forty years ago.
[10] In a hopeful turn, there are economists venturing down "the
road less travelled." Beginning in the 1960s, ecological economists
like Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly began to articulate a
different approach. The old mechanistic metaphor that reduced
the economy to the maximization of individual self-interested
pursuits in delimited markets is being challenged by a more organic
biological view of the interrelatedness of a community of life.
Ecological economists understand the economy as a subset of the
environment. They argue that corporations have to meet the test of
the triple bottom line - financial, social and environmental.
They did not accept uncritically the neoclassical measures and
valuations for assessing the health of the economy.
Most importantly they believe that economics have to be more
interdisciplinary and open to wider participation.
[11] Ecological economists are also meeting theologians
venturing down "the road less travelled." Eco-theology is
nurturing new metaphors for an earth community and an earth
ethic. Ethicists are increasingly asserting that the economy
is part of the Great Economy or the divine economy. Churches
have been on the forefront of corporate social responsibility,
pressing for corporations to pursue the "triple bottom line." And
increasingly, religious groups have been pressing for a wider
understanding of health and well-being and more participatory
processes.
[12] John Cobb Jr., a theologian, and Herman E. Daly, and
economist, in For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy
toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future,
offer an example of what is possible when the dialogue is
joined. Cobb and Daly also point to an opportunity for
theological ethicists in the public discourse when they observe
that,
. . . the changes that are
needed in society are at a level that stirs religious
passions. The debate is a religious one whether that is made
explicit or not. The whole understanding of reality and the
orientation to it are at stake.4
[13] In this era of economic globalization, the alliance and
mutual ethical engagement of these two communities may offer real
possibilities for transforming the public discourse, for changing
the nature of economics and theology themselves and for opening
different policy choices to the global family.
© November
2003
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 3, Issue 11
1 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (The Riverside Press,
Cambridge Massachusetts, 1962) p.277
2 "The Washington Consensus" was coined in 1989 by
economist John Williamson then of the Institute of International
Economics that advocated the liberalization or marketization of
economies. The ten policy pillars were privatization, deregulation,
property rights, trade liberalization, tax reform, liberalizing
interest rates, competitive exchange rates, reordering public
expenditure priorities, liberalization of foreign direct
investment. See John Williamson, "The Progress of Policy reform in
Latin America," Policy Analyses in International Economics, Number
28 (Institute for International Economics, Washington, January
1990)
3 "Trading Away the Future," The Canadian Conference of
Catholic Bishops Social Affairs Commission, Ottawa, Ontario, 2002.
Prepared for the January 2002 Conference on Humanizing the Global
Economy in January 2003. The Bishops provide a number of examples.
For example, the Canadian government ban on the export of PCBs in
compliance with its international obligations, was overturned after
S.D. Meyers successfully sued the Canadian government and was
awarded US$5 million. There have been 26 cases with damages awarded
to corporations totalling US$5 billion.
4 Herman E. Daly and John Cobb Jr., For the Common Good,
Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a
Sustainable Future (Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts; 1989) p.
375