Single-use Planet
Imagine yourself 30 years from now.
Imagine yourself looking back, reflecting on your time spent on this Earth.
What will you think?
"Just look at how far we've come"
How far will we go?
It's hard to depict what the future will be like. It seems to get harder as the years go on and the potential for technological innovations expand. It's quite possible that technology will have dramatically altered how we look at and experience life. It's likely that the reality (and virtual realities) we shall experience are far from our present imaginations.
But how far will we actually go?
Two days ago the Collins Dictionary announced their word of the year for 2018:
Single-use - made to be used once only.
Much of the four-fold increase in the use of the term can be attributed to the moving scenes of BBC's Blue Planet II. Once again the power of the arts shook society from its paralysis, awakening its disconnected environmental consciousness.
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| Single-use Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty |
The use of such terms throughout public discourse has no doubt promoted action. One example was seen in the European Parliament where to ban single-use plastic items, such as plastic straws, cotton swabs and disposable cutlery, by 2021 was passed with 571 votes to 53.
Whilst it is exciting to hear of such successes and I hope that these next few years will later be remembered for many, many of them, I feel a slight apprehension in having a celebrating.
Three days ago, George Monbiot, a journalist for The Guardian, criticised the narrator of Blue Planet, Sir David Attenborough for "downplaying" the environmental crisis. He disapproved of the familiar use of rhetorics which demand change, yet fail to specify how this can be brought about economically, socially and politically.
Another view which has come about in light of this controversy is how the environmental crisis seems to be increasingly defined as a plastic crisis.
Action is being taken - and for that we should be proud. I also feel that whilst Monbiot's points make sense, they fail to see how Attenborough has set the precedent for societal change where no-one else has stepped up to the mark with as widespread and potent impact.
Yet, as the BBC documentary Stacey Dooley Investigates: Fashion's Dirty Secrets made blatently clear - we are hiding other issues from view.
A sinister thought this is, and one which I don't have the credentials or evidence to fully support but, it seems to me that government officials and policy makers are purposefully using these few anti-single-use successes to satisfy the public. Promising and vague rhetorics remain just that. In the name of 'progress' we hear the news of the ban on the radio and get our hit of dopamine. Then, we carry on down the motorway, stop off for some bread and milk, pick out a new top whilst your at it but all the while it's cool because you've got your re-usable water bottle.
Whereas society has made many contemporary environmental issues 'invisible,' only climate change can be objectively defined as such.
30 years ago on this day, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change held it's first session in Geneva. Formed of experts and scientists, the IPCC analyse and assess scientific studies on climate change. They been instrumental in bringing about policies, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and in making reports which state the most accepted depiction of the 'truth.' For example, I would like to commend them on a recent report which declared that we have just 12 years to limit before the climatic changes we induce will be catastrophic in terms of the water scarcity, food shortages and quasi-natural disaster intensities that would result.
Yet, looking back, how far have we come?
Emissions are still rising. Extinctions are continuing. Deforestation is recurring and inequalities in health, water scarcity and income keep on growing.
An accurate depiction of the world is difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is even impossible for the human brain to make sense of it. Yet this most definitely makes 'progress' hard to define.
Progress is subjectively defined; I cannot provide you with a definition. I encourage you to make your own. Perhaps the only way we can move forward and reverse this environmental crisis is by addressing our own values, creating our own agenda and opening up our minds to whoever else in this world can help us achieve our own definition of progress.
This is not a single-use planet.
How will you spend your time on this Earth?
H _ M
:)
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