Tony Juniper and Viv Regan disagree

Dear Tony,

No, sadly the poorest people in the developing world are now used to justify environmental campaigns, the idea being they will suffer more from environmental problems. This lie is inexcusable.

‘Vulnerability’ and ‘poverty’ are not natural, but rather products of under-development. Development means mastering nature, not worshipping it, and in the West this has ensured we’re protected against most of what nature throws at us. Yet environmentalists do not campaign to make the developing world rich, to master nature or for global equality.

Seventy percent of the world lives a subsistence life, living off the land and just getting by. For the sake of some mythical harmonious relationship to nature, sustainability would preserve this fact. While universal prosperity is hidden away in the history books, treating the developing world as a farm or a zoo sums up environmental thinking.

Disliking what progress has given us in the West is foolish enough, imposing this dissatisfaction on the developing world is an outrage. Be it in China, Sub-Saharan Africa or anywhere else, people want modern, urban comforts, from dishwashers to jacuzzis. Environmentalists would see this as bad news. We should see it as human progress and, with a people first approach, perfectly possible.

Yours, Viv

Dear Viv,

I see that you have not read the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). Had you taken the time to have a look at this exhaustive study, then you would realise that your anti-environmental rant is groundless.

Like you, the MEA observes that a large proportion of the world’s population lives in subsistence economies. Such people are directly dependent on rain, soil, fish, plants and wild animals in meeting their day-to-day needs. Removing or disrupting these environmental services, which is often the result of present patterns of development, undermines the already precarious welfare of the people you claim to be concerned about. Protecting the environment is not about harmony, it’s about livelihoods.

The MEA concludes that, on the basis of the best available and most up to date evidence, if degradation of the environment continues it will be impossible to achieve world governments’ Millennium Development Goals. By separating development from the need to maintain essential environmental services, you are advocating an approach that makes matters worse for poorer people, not better.

If you think that ‘development’ is somehow going to magically end poor people’s dependence on nature, and that the environment can thus be disregarded, then you are not living in the real world.

Yours, Tony

Dear Tony,

You argue that poor people are dependent on the environment, therefore we should preserve the environment. This only confirms my point. This is treating the developing world like a farm and people as zoo animals, denying their aspirations for modern comforts and urban life. The fact that you align yourself with the Millennium Development Goals which are about reducing poverty, not eradicating it, merely highlights the low horizons you have for people in developing countries. In your world it seems that poverty is acceptable for the sake of nature.

Back in the real world, you only have to open your front door to see the huge social and economic benefits development has provided us with. In the UK we live in the first post-scarcity generation and yet, instead of celebrating this monumental achievement and fighting for the rest of the world to have the same, you are denying the developing world Western levels of development. This used to be called racism; denying our common humanity across the globe and prescribing what people can and can't have in foreign lands.

We should accept and fight for nothing less than global equality.

Yours, Viv

Dear Viv,

You say the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not enough, and that all poor people should have a better life, but your position lacks practical application. If the science says there is little prospect of even the MDGs being achieved because of environmental constraints, how can you seriously advocate even more 'development'  without paying serious attention to environmental issues? Again, I encourage you to go back to the scientific literature before launching into a rant.

Take the question of carbon dioxide emissions.

We presently have about one billion people emitting carbon dioxide broadly at the level of the UK. Suggesting that it is possible to equip six billion with a similar level of consumption is pure fantasy. Taking that course (which is broadly the course we are on) is an act of collective suicide, and the pain will be felt first and most harshly in the developing countries. Rapid climate change will in many countries cause massive economic damage and humanitarian tragedy. Do you really believe that would help development and end poverty?

If you are serious about equality, you should be advocating an approach based on a reduction in the resource consumption of the unsustainable northern countries, not suggesting that everyone can get up to our level.

Yours, Tony

Dear Tony,

The scientific literature is of course important, but meaningless without some social science. Animals rely on ecosystems to find drinking water but people do not. We rely on social developments that help us overcome nature. So people in London do not rely on this week’s heavy rainfall in local streams, but instead on our network of pipes, reservoirs, dams and sewage works. The reason why the poor suffer most in disasters is because they lack society-wide development.

Development solves problems, provides energy solutions such as nuclear power or large-scale hydroelectric power and, into the future, offers fuels from genetically modified plants. We might even inject aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect the heat or find cleaner technologies such as nuclear fusion. Without the development which you reject, solutions that could really impact on our lives will remain unexplored, leaving us all to make do and mend.

At a time when humans are rocketing to Mars, you argue that halving the amount of people living on a dollar a day or less is just not realistic. How profoundly anti-human! WORLDwrite will continue to demand the best for all and a world where people live beyond your wildest dreams.

Yours, Viv

Dear Viv,

Of course people in London rely on nature. Where do you think the raw materials and food that sustains their lifestyles comes from? You may not have noticed, but the process of development that you advocate is not using nature as a springboard for the ending of poverty. It is first and foremost a process of liquidating environmental capital for excessive consumption in the northern industrialised countries.

Land, forests, minerals and fisheries are under pressure across the developing world, in large part for export. The idea is that exporting will help countries escape from poverty, but it removes the resources from under the noses of the people who depend on them directly. This is being done with the enthusiastic backing of 'development' advocates like you. Not only is sustainable development in the poorer exporting countries thus being undermined, the livelihood for millions is being removed.

It is futile to insist that environmental constraints don't exist. They do, and they are an increasingly important dimension of poverty. Get real Viv, and see that you cannot realistically pose a choice between environmental and development goals: you have to pursue both, otherwise it will be impossible to achieve either.

Yours, Tony

Tony Juniper is the Executive Director of Friends of the Earth
 
Viv Regan is assistant director at WORLDwrite