Energy & Ecology – Saving the earth; a concern for the developed nations but the otherwise for the developing ones?

Al Gore. A name popularly associated with the much needed efforts to protect the Earth. He was an environmental activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. His documentary- An Inconvenient Truth, won appraisals and even an Academy Award. The Live Earth Concert in 2007 also aimed to spread the message of saving the Earth with the aid of celebrities performing and spreading the message. Much controversies and debates had rose from the two significant events. Many had pointed out that the rubbish and litter that was left behind by the spectators of the concert and the massive use of energy to support the concert are both ironic to Al Gore’s message of saving the Earth. The New York Times also reported on concerns among some scientists about the tone and the accuracy of the film. They argued that some of Al Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. Conflicting viewpoints included the climate changes, effects on the melting of ice sheets and the relationship between temperatures and carbon dioxide which led to global warming. These, inevitably undermined the activist’s reputation and more significantly, his aims. Whatever the case, Al Gore’s attempts should be applauded. He managed to cause an impact on the global community and set them thinking about their ways of life-exactly what a sociologist wanted!

Sernau’s reading on “How much can a planet take” and “Promotheus’ fire or Pandora’s Box” already emphasized how capitalism created an ever growing demand of production and the ever going on search for efficient or new ways and new resources to satisfy that demand. The process had led to huge wastage of resources such as plastic and electronic materials which cannot be easily recycled, leading to the destruction of our ecology, and thus, the Earth. Hence, it can be seen that the sociologist’s concerns and aims matched that of Al Gore’s. Thus, we should be grateful that the former vice-president of US managed to convey our concerns to the global population. However, there is a subtle difference between the concerns of the sociologist and Al Gore. The sociologist would believe that the destruction of our habitat would be due to the capitalist belief that the nature is like a resource (an object) which they could exploit, just like what they did to humans too. A sociologist would argue that the poorer nations tended to be the ones contributing to the most destruction as they have no other resources to depend on. Both points were not presented by Al Gore.

However, looking back on Al Gore’s background, he came from a fairly well-to-do family. He had reputable parents and holds a degree from Harvard University. He must be fairly rich to run electorate campaigns. Furthermore, he was born in the US-a country that has long passed the age of the Industrial Revolution where industries contributed most to massive pollution of waters and the air, as seen presently in China. Al Gore and those from developed countries, all thus had the privilege to be concerned about the ecology. The developing nations or those engaging in industrialization do not have this privilege as their path to economic development or even survival would be threatened. They’ll never be able to catch up with the West, which they looked upon with envy and jealousy. So why would they compromise development with environment? This is what Marx termed as the greed of capitalism.

The greed of one to wealth accumulation blinded him from the problems of the ecology which he derives his basic resources from. The painful awareness of the difference between the poor nations and the rich compelled the poor to catch up, using whatever means, to satisfy their greed and is seen as the end to their misery. In this case, how would The Earth Summit and similar programmes be effective when the focus is only on reducing the process of destruction without detailed look into the context of the developing nations? How would preservation of the ecology be effective without eradicating capitalism? To ask the developing nations to stop exploiting the ecology is equivalent to asking the super rich in the developed countries to stop using cars, plastics, electronics materials etc. The rich had found it difficult to compromise their ways of living, so why is it that the poor must do so? To just simply point out the devastating impacts we had done to the Earth, like in the case of Al Gore, and getting people to stop their ways of life which contributed to destruction is not enough. We need to change the mindset of the people on what is deemed as their ideal standards of living and getting them to reflect what is really necessary for them so that they minimizes exploitation of the nature. For the developing nations, we have to help them find better means of production that minimizes destruction of the nature and provide them with the resources and knowledge to acquire and use such means of production. With technology came greater means to destroy the nature, yet as technology is created by the needs of humans, technology can be used to save the Earth too. It only depends on the individuals’ purpose and willingness to achieve the aim. Saving the Earth needs global concerted efforts, but it cannot be achieved if exploitation of the poor is still largely ignored.