Ecological Disaster, n°2

Can we really talk about ecological disaster?

At present, the optimists believe: “Life is proceeding without too many incidents. The environment is sometimes used, but ecological balances are really broken only in relatively small areas. Some species have disappeared, but life is full of resources, biodiversity is recovering in one way or another. It is true that chemical pollution is found all over the world, to the poles and the bottom of the oceans, but its effects on organisms are localized and certainly reversible…

While the Inuit have suffered serious harm as a result of the consumption of seals and whales, it is a minority population, particularly affected by very special ancestral feeding practices. Mechanical pollution, plastic bags, cans, household waste, landfills etc. damage only small portions of land, which the media highlight, but which are still perfectly bearable when you look at things on a large scale. New engines waste much less fuel, toxic particles are largely retained in catalytic exhausts, industry is also severely regulated.

Global warming is only a few degrees, sea levels have not moved significantly, and these temperature changes are a natural phenomenon. Floods and droughts have always punctuated history. Glaciers are declining, but there have always been alternations of glaciation and glacial melting. Moreover, a general awareness has been generated and is still progressing, so that at most one can speak of an ecological misadventure, from which the world can easily emerge, and in no case of a disaster, which would presuppose damage seriously endanger the survival of humanity.”

In the face of this kind of minimalist discourse, alarmist or even apocalyptic discourses arise everywhere, predicting the end of life on earth in a more or less brief time, shouting that the party is lost in advance, that the current prejudices are irreversible, that all efforts will be vain… The media pick up and resonate, the paper selling better when it conveys fears and horrors. The ecologists make it their horse of battle, even their commercial base, the attention of the public and the voices of the voters winning more easily when the danger threatens.

What exactly is it? If all forms of environmental degradation could be stopped overnight, the planet would emerge without much damage. The situation would hardly worsen compared to what it is today, provided that global warming has not yet started too many vicious circles, such as methane accumulated under the seabed, which could spread under the influence of rising temperatures and further aggravate the greenhouse effect. For the rest, the current economic situation appears to be an impasse only if it is assumed that the world is unable to change harmful conduct.

It is true that the opposing inertia forces are enormous. In fact David and Goliath, it’s the chip against the elephant, or the mini-pot of earth against the megapot of iron. The future seems plotted ahead. However, it is questionable whether it could be otherwise. If there are no specific causes that make us overly dependants on our wasteful habits and harmful conduct. Consumerism is not necessarily fatal. He will lose the pregnancy he has in our culture if we succeed in clearing out the conscious and unconscious psychic causes.

The existential emptiness we feel when we need to dispense with material advantages that spice and soften our existence depends on our psychic state. The horror of effort, the fear of missing, the tendency to fill our stomach beyond our actual needs, the importance we place in our wardrobe or fleet of cars, the slavery of fashion, the permeability of advertising, the need for change of scenery at the cost of the exorbitant quantities of CO2 distilled by planes and the interminable waves flowing on highways, and many other elements that are the engines of polluting consumption, are the direct result of our psychic arrangements. Otherwise, we could do without frustration, boredom or depression.

Clearly, if there is an ecological impasse, it is first of all because we find ourselves in a psychological impasse, and it is at this level more than the level of environmental protection measures that we can find fundamental and definitive solutions. Otherwise, all imaginable limiting measures may sink into oblivion or run into the inertia of the masses. Or to be caught up by the exponential demographic that they will generate by pushing the fateful limit of resource depletion…