“…Where did that come from? Afterwards, it’s as obvious as daylight. But afterwards is too late.  Afterwards is no bloody use to anyone.”  – Upon the Mathematics of Falling Away, Paul Kingsnorth

For many years Paul Kingsnorth has been an ‘activist’.  From being part of the Twyford Down protests when he was 19, travelling around the world, writing about the rise of the grass roots anti-globalisation movement and the damage to the Earth, to becoming a known voice on environmentalism and using his skill with words on websites, in magazines, on panels – you name it, he did it.

He doesn’t do that any more.  I’ll rephrase that – he doesn’t do that kind of environmentalism any more.  This fascinating collection of essays explains why.

Only one of the essays was actually written for the book; the others, from 2010 onwards, have been published elsewhere. Even though some of them appear on the surface not to be related, putting them together like this charts the progress in his thinking and feelings about how humanity is failing to tackle the damage to the environment and the threat of climate change.

He starts with A Crisis of Bigness.  There is no doubt the world is facing a crisis, and that the current crisis “is a crisis of growth.  Not, as we are regularly told, a crisis caused by too little growth, but by too much of it.”

He quotes Leopold Kohr whose book A Breakdown of Nations sets out Kohr’s belief that “small states, small nations and small economies are more peaceful, more prosperous and more creative than great powers or superstates“.  This is very much the attitude that the American farmer/essayist and poet Wendell Berry takes when he champions the small community’s ability to survive, or indeed the late economist E.F. Schumacher in his book Small is Beautiful.

This is not what superpowers and global corporations want to hear. For them the answer is always to grow, no matter how much of the Earth is used up.  For Kingsnorth and some others the Earth comes first.  Humanity is part of the Earth, not outside or above it.  We belong to it in a very real way that has nothing to do with money, or ‘progress’ or man’s anthropocentric belief in his exceptionality.

The problem with current environmentalism, claims Kingsnorth, is that in its efforts to stop or at least affect the actions of global corporations, environmentalists have adopted corporate language, and that has sucked them into the corporate game.  It was, he writes, “perhaps inevitable that a utilitarian society would generate a utilitarian environmentalism.”

As an example (mine, not Kingsnorth’s), despite the anger among Green people at the corporate desire to see everything natural as having monetary value, environmentalists tend to counter that by placing their own values on, say, a piece of woodland which will, in the end, have a part to play in our economy.

There is a huge push from the Green Movement for renewable energy.  Fine.  We’d all like clean carbon-free energy (although no human activity in today’s world is carbon-free), but our demand for energy is so huge that it will turn the wild areas of our green land into industrial sites for solar panels and wind farms.

And Kingsnorth identifies a greater problem in our thinking: somehow we believe that achieving 100% renewable energy will allow us to go on living the way we do now, without giving anything up.  It will be ‘sustainable’, whatever that means. ‘Sustainable’ is not one of his favourite words. To quote from the essay that has the same title as the book:

“(Renewable energy) is an engineering challenge; a problem-solving device for people to whom the sight of a wild Pennine hilltop on a clear winter day brings not feelings of transcendence but thoughts about the wasted potential for renewable energy. It is about saving civilisation from the results of our own actions; a desperate attempt to prevent Gaia from hiccupping and wiping out our coffee shops and broadband connections. It is our last hope.“

If you read no other part of the book, read this essay.  It is a damning indictment of what has happened to the Green Movement over the years, the shift away from trying to protect wild, non-human places for their own sake, not ours. Now our, and only our, interests are central to the argument. The mainstream environmentalists don’t like being called out on this, and Kingsnorth has received a lot of criticism for turning his back – he was ‘a middle class escapist who needed to get real’.

He does point out that his retreat to a small plot of land with his family to live a very low-impact life is his answer to what is happening to the planet. We should be grateful he goes on writing and stirring our thoughts, but we all have to find our own way of living with what faces us – the destruction of our only home and the destruction of our life-friendly climate.

The essay The Bay is a wonderfully personal and emotive piece about Morecambe Bay. In describing how the Bay works, Kingsnorth helps us to understand how uncontrollable the natural world can be, and how our desire to control often simply adds to a dangerous ignorance. And when we have the power and technical capability to control something as wild as Morecambe Bay, we will, inevitably, destroy it.

In The Witness Kingsnorth tackles something which humanity with its dreams of immortality, if not for individuals then at least for the species, does not want to look at. Planet Earth has gone through many extinction events. It is, says Kingsnorth, “an extinction machine. It is not in crisis; we humans are, or see it as a crisis.” It is hard to see the loss of species that we are witnessing now as a natural process. The difficulty with this extinction event is that we humans have caused it. It need not have happened.

The final essay, Planting Trees in the Anthropocene, looks at a future its adherents call the ‘technium’.  The geeks, the digital wonder boys, foresee a time when humans become dominated by technology to the point when we become mechanised. We are already on the way, being so attached to our computers and smart phones we pay no attention to the outer world. But if we are intent on destroying the processes of life on our planet, when we can no longer produce food, live with rising seas or scorching temperatures, what option will humanity have but to become a machine? Quite frankly, the view is terrifying.

This book is full of thoughts that have passed through my own mind over the years: the absolute conviction that humanity is not separate from, above or outside the rest of life, but simply one part of it; that its interests and rights are no more important than those of any other form of life: the long-held conviction that there are simply too many of us wanting more and more of something else’s space; and the belief that we need to return to thinking ‘small’, both in our communities and our individual needs.  How else, regardless of what the future holds, can we be at peace both with ourselves and the planet?

Looking at how we are destroying the Earth we know, recognising that any action on climate change will not stop our inevitable collapse, how do we live with what we have done and are doing in our pursuit of ever more ‘sustainable growth’? 

We have to find a way to live kindly with the Earth, in order to survive as best we can. 

In their joint interview on BBC Radio 4 (broadcast on May 1^st, 2017) both Paul Kingsnorth and Wendell Berry advocated finding a part of the natural world to love and be part of. We cannot ‘save the world’, as Kingsnorth thought he was doing in his early days of activism. But we can each find a little piece of it to love and protect.

Kingsnorth is a talented, engaging writer and this book is a good read, regardless of whether you agree with him or not. Every essay provides food for thought and given a chance, can rearrange the way you view things. It will certainly give you stronger arguments for protecting the wild, of which we are a part.  It could even change the way you decide to live.

This Author

Lesley Docksey is a regular contributor to the Ecologist

Climate change means colder winters, heavy rains and lots of environmental hazards for many people, writes Lina Yassin of Climate Tracker. 

But for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), climate change means uninhabitable weather conditions, forced migration and loss of traditional income. It is a real threat that might make the region uninhabitable. 

The MENA region is considered the world’s driest region: it is the home to six percent of the world’s population yet it contains 12 countries that face extreme water scarcity – including Tunisia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Algeria.

According to The World Bank, the MENA region has less than two percent of the world’s water supply.

Climate change is already affecting the MENA region in dire ways, but it is expected that climate change will cause extreme heat to spread across more of the land for longer periods of time.

This will make some countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia uninhabitable because it will create humid heat conditions at a level incompatible with human existence.

It will also play a major role in reducing growing areas for agriculture – which is one of the most important sectors in the region.

The rising temperatures will keep increasing the pressure on crops and water resources, which will eventually lead to an amplified level of migration and risk of conflict.

The MENA region has experienced a tremendous amount of environmental hazards due to climate change effects.

Between 2006 and 2010, Syria experienced extreme droughts that turned 60 percent of the country into dry desert, making large regions to become economically impoverished.

In 2013 heavy and continuous rains in most of Sudan have led to floods that destroyed 25,000 homes and left hundreds of thousands of people with no work, home, or even family.

The UAE has also suffered a lot from climate change effects: in 2008 at least three people were killed and 350 injured in a horrific 60 vehicle pile-up due to heavy fog.

In 2016, Tunisia’s rainfall dropped by 30 percent causing agricultural losses of nearly two billion dinars.

It is clear now that the MENA region has no option but to go “green”. Adaptation along with mitigation measures will be essential to build up the resilience needed to cope with the changes.

There is an urgent need for governments to invest in new clean-energy innovations that will effectively reduce greenhouse gases emission and halt rising temperature.

Morocco has been a good example on this by making climate change adaptation a national priority and setting the country on a path to green growth.

The country made a strategy called Green Morocco Plan which is focused on agricultural adaptation and sustainable water and land management.

Tunisia is another good example of a country that is well on its way, since it recently decided to include the protection of environment in its new constitution.

Bahrain opened its first solar plant factory this year which shows the government interest in renewable energy investments.

MENA’s climate is ideal for renewable energy technologies, the abundant sunshine and open spaces could be a perfect source for sustainable power sources such as solar and wind power.

Some countries in the region are setting good examples and moving forward with their plans for a better environment.

Others are still depending on fossil fuel industries as their main source of energy, with the leading role for this part going to Saudi Arabia, holding a large part of the region from tackling the issue in a proper way.

The people who have little to no contribution in the issue of climate change are the one suffering the most from its effects.

Therefore, tackling climate change should be every countries’ first priority, because by standing up against climate change we are laying the foundations for a more stable future and less poverty.

This is absolutely necessary if we want to make sure the next generation will have a chance to live in a good environment.

This Author

Lina Yassin is Climate Tracker’s MENA Programme Manager. She is a chemical engineering student from Sudan

www.climatetracker.org

If I were a bee I might well buzz off pretty smartish across the channel. That’s because the future for these vital pollinators looks suddenly more rosy in the EU than it does in the UK.

It was Tory MEP Julie Girling – from my own region, the South West, I am ashamed to admit – who sought to block plans by the European Commission to extend current restrictions on three neonicotinoid pesticides.

She failed, due to 42 MEPs on the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voting to support the Commission’s proposal to extend the ban, and only eight siding with Girling to block the ban. Great news for EU bees, but given the Tories’ cosy relationship with the agri-chemical corporate sector, much more worrying if you are a Brexit bee. 

Neonic ban in the nick of time

Neonicotinoids are the world’s most commonly used insecticides, but have been banned on flowering crops in the EU since 2013.

The ban followed the publication of three reports by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) looking at the toxicity risk to bees and other pollinator species of three neonicotinoid pesticides.

Two of these pesticides, clothianidin and imidacloprid, are made by the corporate giant Bayer; the third, thiamethoxam, is made by Syngenta. 

In 2016 the EFSA found that using neonicotinoids on all types of crops poses a high risk to bees. The European Commission responded by proposing a ban on all uses of the insecticides outside greenhouses.

The mounting scientific evidence in support of extending the ban and the vote in the Environment Committee sends a strong message to EU member states that they should support such a ban. But only if you are in the EU of course.

Syngenta, manufacturers of thiamethoxam, has always denied its products have anything to do with bee mortality. The company earns billions of Euros a year selling neonicotinoid “plant protection products” and seed coating products. It has also been at the centre of a multi-million lobbying campaign across Europe.

The company has taken to the internet and placed full page adverts in major European newspapers, to claims that a ban on neonicotinoids is based on flawed science and emotional humbug.

It claims that a ban on neonicotinoids would lead to a fall in crop yields of up to 40% and would not save a single bee hive. This has clearly been swallowed hook, line and stinger by the Tories.

Indeed, in 2015, the then Conservative Farming Minister, George Eustice, took out a UK derogation on the EU ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, implying ‘exceptional circumstances’ for applying for an ‘emergency authorisation’ for the use of the chemicals. He also claimed there was “a lot of ambiguity” about the evidence. 

However, a recent UN report was unequivocally scathing about neonicotinoids and deeply critical of the agri-chemical corporations that manufacture them.

The UN accused Bayer and Syngenta of the “systematic denial of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions”. 

Standing up for bees

The EU is offering the prospect of ridding Europe of these hugely harmful and totally unnecessary pesticides, that have quite clearly had a devastating effect on bee populations.

But the hard Brexit, anti-red-tape brigade inside the Tory party are more keen on ridding us of what they see as interfering rules – those regulations that actually protect our wildlife, including essential pollinators like bees. 

Despite protestations by the agri-chemical industry, farmers and Tory politicians, there is a real alternative to the use of neonicotinoids. ‘Integrated pest management’ is the term used to describe this alternative.

It involves low-pesticide input pest management, prioritising non-chemical methods – working with the ecosystem rather than aiming to ‘control’ it. Integrated pest management is already a goal set out within the EU Directive on sustainable use of pesticides.   

As Brexit negotiations get under way we will need to watch carefully that leaving the EU doesn’t have a nasty sting in its tail for out valuable pollinators.

As Greens, we will do all we can to defend crucial environmental regulations from attack by corporate giants and complicit politicians. 

This Author

Molly Scott Cato is Green MEP for the South West of England and sits on the European Parliament’s Agricultural Committee