On this world environment day – Go beyond tokenism

Anoop Varghese Kuriappuram

We live in times of  eco-catastrophes, from Tsunami to global warming, from Uttarakhad floods to earthquakes. Nature has  served us with numerous warnings, to stop our greedy exploitative ways. Now,  It is time for us to act on this warnings. In an era, when people are going behind “go green” concept just to promote their brand value, we need to identify what the real problem is.

As the famous eco-Marxist, Joel Kovel says in his famous book – “Enemy of Nature”, the real enemy of nature is capitalism. In it’s effort to multiply profits, it actually tears down  the environment into pieces. It’s greedy unchecked production increases   atmospheric temperature. At the same time it offers coolers and air conditioners as the solution to the problem. We must understand that unchecked exploitation of nature will make earth another desert and it will hit the working class and the poor the most. That is exactly why working class need to take up environmental struggle upfront.

There are many  streams of reaction to this  phenomenon,  two of them are environmentalism eco-socialism. Environmentalism is actually a hog wash which for example, suggests us to use less paper to save trees, but is silent to the “pulp” industry which consumes more than any body else. The very fundamentalism of this stream is to keep people who are innocent as the accused and make them feel guilty.

Eco socialism is a larger thought process, which mandates people’s control over environmental resources and supports exploitation only based on need. At this moment, eco socialism is the correct alternative against exploitation of environment.

Government also must form laws, which rewards people to choose sustainable way of life. One example is to encourage public transportation by providing big subsidies and should discourage mode of individual transportation. Another example can be banning of plastic bags. When coming to celebration part, “Global warming, tree is the answer” is the famous quote by former kerala forest minister Sri Binoy Viswom. Evidently, one of the things we can do is to plant a tree. Planting a tree does not end with planting day, it needs water, fertilisers and it should be guarded against  stray animals and human activity. When the tree grows, the emotional bond of human with tree also grows. The joy, that can be derived from this activity is unparallel. There are many things such as taking rain-pits, doing rainwater harvesting ,solar energy usage ..etc which can help as a token to environment .

But let us understand that we need alternative policies not tokenism, to address this larger issue of environmental problem.