Planet under Pressure

ECOLOGICAL LESSONS
its head? The same applies to tourism,
which has become more expansive and
escapist than ever before, with everything
from electric mountain biking to
cruises through the Arctic. In psychological
terms, when presented with data
showing us that we must change our
hyperconsumerist lifestyle, we react in
the complete opposite way to how we
are supposed to.
This is something that only the members
of society who are true believers
in the science did not expect. After all,
it is only the members of the scientific
community who believe, owing to their
detachment from the broader perspective,
that knowledge guides our actions.
Indeed, a brief glance at their own lives
– as frequent flyers and, as higher earners,
seasoned practitioners of resourceintensive
lifestyles – is all it takes to
disprove the theory.
It is high time we stopped issuing pleas
and warnings, not only because those
who have been exposed to them repeatedly
over the past few decades have long
since taken them into account in their
habits and personalities, without even
the slightest change being implemented
in the economic and social system in
which they live, but also because the
desire for global consumption actually
increases with the intensity of pleas and
warnings instead of decreasing.
Conditions for the paradigm shift
As long as this system – let us call it the
expansive cultural model – continues
to prevail as it does now, there cannot
and will not be any paradigm shift
toward sustainable, environmentally
friendly economies and lifestyles. This
is not about will and perception. It is
about patterns of behavior, about making
use of and shaping our world, and
about guiding our understanding of it.
In Marx’s terms, our social being determines
our consciousness. A paradigm
shift toward a reductive cultural model
is essential if we are to accept and deal
with the challenges stemming from the
looming danger of climate change and
It is high time we
stopped issuing
pleas and warnings,
because the desire
for global
consumption
actually increases
with the intensity of
pleas and warnings
instead of
decreasing.
all the other urgent ecological crises
on the road ahead. This cannot take
place through the idealistic forming of
consciousness; it must be the product
of changing behaviors. It may sound
tautologous, but research shows that
this is exactly what is needed. When a
new service is offered that is better than
the original service, people will opt for
the new service without the aspect of
sustainability playing any kind of role
in their decision. A prime example of
this thinking is Swiss Railways, whose
services are widely used by Swiss citizens,
resulting in the lowest passenger car
use in Europe in relative terms, simply
because the trains offer the best mobility
service when it comes to comfort,
service quality, and reliability. The fact
that trains are the most environmentally
friendly form of transport is an added
benefit for its users, which they can
either appreciate or ignore completely.
The sustainability transformation is a
combination of practices of this nature
that have proven successful in the past
or are currently enjoying success. It is a
heterotopic process, as we build on many
elements that are enshrined in society
and must not be changed or abandoned,
such as the division of powers, suffrage,
and the rule of law. The transformation
is not one single process either. It is a
modular project consisting of a multitude
of smaller transformations that,
in an ideal scenario, interact to form
concrete utopias. The 20th century and
techno-utopian ideals, such as the safe
use of nuclear energy, have provided
many a lesson that master plans to satisfy
human desires usually have lethal
consequences. Project Civilization is not
over and remains ongoing. But neither
does it have a finite goal or an ultimate
solution. Society must be adaptable to
changing conditions and requirements
and deal with mistakes and collateral
damage – and so be correctable.
Unlike the old modern ideal, this cannot
be a project just for the experts, with
technical and scientific elites drawing
up plans that are then imposed upon
society by politicians. It must be developed
and scrutinized in all areas of life.
Never have there been more groups,
initiatives, cooperatives, and collectives
that embrace different economic values
and lifestyles in the western world than
right now. These unifying structures
do not take the form of popular theories,
manifestos, or iconography. They
are instead expressed in local, practical
behaviors. There are transition towns
all over the world acting as petri dishes
for alternative, local economic models,
and urban gardening is also becoming
ubiquitous. Both of these movements
are methods of requisitioning public
space for social and ecological purposes.
Other examples include repair cafés,
citizen cooperatives, zero-packaging
shops, community-supported agriculture,
economies for the common good,
residential projects, and eco-villages, all
of which are experiments in a concrete
utopia. Their value is derived in the fact
that they can be experienced and trialed,
and not because they only exist on paper.
The clarity offered by such experiments
of alternative economics and lifestyles
is one of their greatest virtues. As Erik
Olin Wright said, it is about building
“emancipatory alternatives in the spaces
and cracks within capitalist economies”
and fighting for their proliferation.
Source: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 2019,
No. 47-48, p. 16-20, CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0
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