The story appears on

Page A7

July 20, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Opinion » Chinese Views

Old habits masked by banner of awareness can’t address root causes of climate change

CLIMATE changes affects us all. As a matter of fact, we are daily confronted with myriad signs of environmental degradation.

But so far we urbanites have been insulated from the worst of these manifestations.

Yes, the temperature is going up, but we can afford to spend our way out of it, usually by turning on the air-conditioner.

Meanwhile, the floods that have ravaged parts of central and south China have led to destruction and death, raising the specter of a similar episode in 1998. Experts have been quick with assurances, pinning the worst of this disaster on extenuating circumstances.

The precipitation is bound to weaken eventually, and we will soon put another historic flood behind us.

The more reflective among us might see this episode as a reminder of how vulnerable we are, but in the long run this cannot but be a mild distraction from the all-absorbing business of making, getting and spending.

This mindset is not unique.

As Felipe Calderón observed recently on this page (“Research highlights hidden connection between education and climate change,” July 11), “Many people don’t understand the risks climate change poses to global economic and social structures.”

Citing a recent Pew study, the author suggests that seven out of ten Americans classified as political independents were not very concerned that climate change would hurt them.

What is less noticeable is that for those who claim to have some environmental awareness, this knowledge is often insufficient to lead to meaningful change. For education to be truly transformational, it should provide fundamental tenets and guidelines to influence our choices and behaviors.

Ironically, ecological awareness sometimes lead to principles and acts that are contradictory and counterproductive to our intentions. In the end, many trendy concepts just feed our vanity and make us complacent.

It is tempting to believe that we can consume our way out of the environmental mess we’ve created.

For instance, by paying a few extra dollars more when booking your air ticket, you may believe you’ve successfully erased your carbon footprint. Big-spending consumers with a smattering of green ideas can flatter themselves as being environmentally responsible while pushing a cartful of green merchandise through the aisles of Walmart, before driving home in a green car.

And when some people aggressively embraced going green as a “way of life,” it leads to actual destruction.

For instance, some tourists, vaguely green and positively bored, have powerful fantasies about escape by taking adventures in the untrodden ways, going off the beaten track by camping in the wild, in their eagerness to get intimate with the wild.

This is not exactly an endeavor to climb the Mount Qomolangma (also known as Mount Everest), but it’s good enough to share on WeChat.

But occasionally such plans backfire.

In July 9 a group of travelers chose to camp in the grassy marshlands of Xiao Wutaishan Natural Reserve in Hebei Province, and pictures shared online shows one man diligently removing a thick layer of grass with a pickaxe while preparing the campsite, beside the many camps already erected nearby.

Another picture shows a group of travelers gleefully posing with handfuls of Chinese globeflowers (a herbal medicine).

After the stir caused by these photos, on July 13 local authority issued a circular banning all intruders.

Yes, we used to have great adventurers like Xu Xiake (1586-1641), a traveler, geographer, historian, and man of letters, who traveled to places that covered 19 provinces and municipalities today, and his experiences were recorded in one of the greatest travel books in China, “The Travels of Xu Xiake.”

For Xu, the thirst for travel was fired by the desire to “visit places untouched by human feet, and in achieving this nothing can be spared.”

Leaving few traces

What is unknown to many is that Xu left few traces behind him.

For instance, Xu mentioned in his great book how monk Jing Wen, who traveled with him, would refrain from discharging anything into water.

One night while their boat was anchored in a river in Hubei Province, Jing Wen insisted on going to the bank to relieve himself. He was ambushed by robbers, and ultimately succumbed to the injuries he suffered.

A modern human, inured to modern amenities, have become consumers wherever they are. For them, nothing is too sacred to be pressed into service of their “necessities.” Is it unreasonable to ask how much energy those campers had consumed?

Expensive hotels have become a major sources of pollution in areas which were once known as pristine getaways.

The rise of tourism entails the constructions of roads, parking sites, shops, cables cars, entertainment facilities, to say nothing of the provision of electricity, tap water and food.

We take pride in our fearlessness. But in matter of nature, a healthy dose of awe can be profitable.

Some people we once considered “backward” used to view mountains, lakes and rivers as sacred, and that offending them would bring calamities.

It turns out that they knew more than we gave them credit for.

In Egor Petrovich Kovaleski’s (1811-1868) memoirs about his travels through China as a Russian missionary, he mentioned a lake in today’s Inner Mongolia rich in salt. “You might think, given the availability of salt and the considerable prices it can fetch, this must have led to a considerable rise in the standard of living for those people around the lake.”

That was not exactly true, for the Mongolians would extract only what was necessary for their basic needs.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”

Green concepts should not be used for self-satisfaction or for mere exhibition, but as vital principles governing the survival of our species.

In this respect, we certainly have a lot to learn. I was awestruck a few years ago while visiting a monastery in Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, where a number of indifferently clad monks were enthusiastically chanting a sutra.

A standard impression for a standard tourist would be how well off they are in comparison, rather than an awakening as to how it is possible for some people to live in contentment with so little.

Climate change affects us all, but we still are not acting as quickly as we should in addressing its causes, and this lack of action can be blamed on the inadequacy of our education.

Rather than continue to flatter our sense of material affluence, a proper education should lead to the realization of how many things in life blind us to more meaningful purposes.

True ecological awareness should be informed by a sense of our vulnerability, rather than the eagerness to show off.

Rather than articulating our aspiration by consumption, it is high time we enunciated our sense of responsibility by cutting down our consumption.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend