The Dangers of a Solely Scientific Approach to Sustainability
(As I wrote the title to this essay, I could just feel the immediate words of objection from people who do carbon emissions calculations. How can you say that? What gets measured gets managed. So if you are one of those wonderful calculating-type people, then bear with me. To start, note my title says there are dangers to a solely scientific approach to sustainability, not that we should get rid of it altogether.)
What could happen if we personally and collectively engaged in a scientific sustainability calculation to decide our actions?
First of all, we might decide that—to be fair—we should give everyone on the planet the same allocation of carbon emissions. That's what this academic paper attempts to do for energy consumption - it concludes that we should all be living a lot like we were in Switzerland in the 1960’s, but that we could also have one laptop per household of four (which is the minimum amount we should have in that household), and each person could have a smartphone. And we all get internet access, too.
In that scenario, we probably don’t fly anywhere (because too many emissions). And we could create similar calculations for toxicity and pollution, and other environmental impact—if we were really advanced in our understanding—planetary boundaries like biodiversity.
I once joined an online meeting of the Extinction Rebellion, hosted by Jem Bendall (author of the book Breaking together: a freedom-loving response to collapse), and one young woman spoke up and said she felt guilty taking a hot shower because of the energy consumption. I felt for her, because today sustainability messaging is steeped in guilt for anyone privileged enough to be able to consume unsustainably.
Along the same lines, here's where the logic of all our environmental calculations might go:
we might stop buying supplies to make art because they might be toxic
we might not write poetry because we think we should spend that time instead protesting
we never eat a favorite family dish at a gathering because it involves meat, even though we would like to
In fact, we might not travel at all to see our family or friends, or nature, because of the fossil fuel consumption involved.
I realize that you may be reading this list and saying—well, maybe we shouldn't be doing all these things. Maybe we shouldn’t. But I think there are things in our life worth doing - or things worth consuming - because these things are acts of reverent service of all of life.
In this sort of world, I follow my intuition and get on a plane to spend time in ceremony with others in nature, because it leads me to a deeper, more meaningful life. (And perhaps someday we’ll all be able to be in ceremony with others in nature closer to home, without the planes.) I write poetry, and I rest in silence, even though the world seems to be burning down all around me.
In this sort of world, yes, I “take action,” too, but as much as possible not as a result of guilt or shame. The guilt and shame taints what I might do anyway, and oddly enough, actually perpetuates the world I don't want to live in. In short, I learn to love more deeply, including loving myself. From this place, I trust (and no, I don’t—and will never have—any logical, scientific calculation to support this) that this, too, changes the world.
A dear friend of mine was joking the other day that someone might cut down the Amazon forest to put up solar panels, if the carbon calculation worked out right. My deepest feelings and sense of truth tell me that this act would not be in service of all life, even if the calculations came out “right” (although they probably wouldn’t, if you really considered all the planetary boundaries, from a long-term perspective).
We collectively need a wider range of sources of truth to making sustainability decisions that involves more than scientific calculations (which frankly never include all the variables they could, anyway). We have to have a framework of what it means for humans to be part of this planet, how we—as one of the vast number of species on this planet—can be in service to all of life, and how to tap into a deeper well to decide what is right for us to do and no do in our lives. The calculations can inform us, sure, but they shouldn't be our sole source of information.