rational versus irrational environmental problems
I just finished reading Jared Diamond’s new book Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed. It’s a brilliant and well-written. In a set of case studies of collapsed civilizations, Diamond reviews the role environmental degradation played in causing the collapse. While he discussed political and cultural causes of societal failure, his emphasis is clearly on the environmental issues that he believes are often the root causes of collapse. In some of the case studies, particularly the Rwanda section, one feels that these political causes deserve more attention, and Diamond comes close to environmental determinism. In general, however, one comes away convinced that environmental degradation has played a key role in many collapses.
The section of the book that’s most interesting to me is simply entitled “Why do some societies made disastrous decisions?” The answer, of course, is “it depends on the society.” There are some cases where societies simply failed to anticipate or perceive an environmental problem, and thus failed to react appropriately. More interesting is when societies perceive an environmental problem, and yet fail to respond. As Diamond correctly points out, this may be because of a purely irrational response by the society (Diamond highlights the Greenland Norse’s stubborn refusal to eat fish even though there was plenty of it around), or because of rational processes of decision-making leading to a suboptimal outcome (the famous example of this is the “tragedy of the commons”).
It strikes me that this question, of rational (yet flawed) and irrational responses to environmental problems, is something environmental NGOs today need to think about. The mainstream
NGOs are focused on “win-win” solutions, which assumes global society has simply not responded rationally to the scientific evidence of environmental degradation. However, it may well be that for many issues like climate change, the rational response of some actors (a company that benefits from an activity that causes degradation of the environment, or a citizen of the developed world more generally that benefits from the vast environmental inequity between the developed and developing world) will be to maximize current personal welfare while damaging the overall system. If most environmental problems require “win-lose” solutions they are, I’d argue, much harder to solve. That’s not to say that “win-win” solution, so-called “no-regrets” actions, should not be taken by NGOs, as the low-hanging fruit. But my reading of Diamond’s book suggests more fundamental environmental problems are “win-lose” situations, that are fundamentally political battles, not simply a matter of ignorance of scientific facts.
The section of the book that’s most interesting to me is simply entitled “Why do some societies made disastrous decisions?” The answer, of course, is “it depends on the society.” There are some cases where societies simply failed to anticipate or perceive an environmental problem, and thus failed to react appropriately. More interesting is when societies perceive an environmental problem, and yet fail to respond. As Diamond correctly points out, this may be because of a purely irrational response by the society (Diamond highlights the Greenland Norse’s stubborn refusal to eat fish even though there was plenty of it around), or because of rational processes of decision-making leading to a suboptimal outcome (the famous example of this is the “tragedy of the commons”).
It strikes me that this question, of rational (yet flawed) and irrational responses to environmental problems, is something environmental NGOs today need to think about. The mainstream
NGOs are focused on “win-win” solutions, which assumes global society has simply not responded rationally to the scientific evidence of environmental degradation. However, it may well be that for many issues like climate change, the rational response of some actors (a company that benefits from an activity that causes degradation of the environment, or a citizen of the developed world more generally that benefits from the vast environmental inequity between the developed and developing world) will be to maximize current personal welfare while damaging the overall system. If most environmental problems require “win-lose” solutions they are, I’d argue, much harder to solve. That’s not to say that “win-win” solution, so-called “no-regrets” actions, should not be taken by NGOs, as the low-hanging fruit. But my reading of Diamond’s book suggests more fundamental environmental problems are “win-lose” situations, that are fundamentally political battles, not simply a matter of ignorance of scientific facts.
