Toni Ruuska, Pasi Heikkurinen, Jessica Jungell-Michelsson and Tina Nyfors
A new kind of economic-humanitarian crisis
At least since Henry David Thoreau, the environmental movement has highlighted the destruction of the biosphere and analyzed its root causes. The more radical wing of the movement, the so-called deep ecologists, have called for widespread societal change, concerning particularly industrialized and urbanized states and nations. Today, also the international scientific community agrees in their reports that climate change and the sixth mass extinction are real, existential threats caused primarily by the territorial expansion of the human species and the growing material production and consumption.
The identified causes and effects of the biospherical crisis are, however, culturally and contextually dependent. It is rather clear that all human cultures are not, or have not been, equally destructive. Notwithstanding the intra-human disproportion in culpability and responsibility, the ecological havoc persists, as it is evident that the aggregate consumption of all human individuals put together is on an unsustainable level. Increasing material affluence, the sheer number of humans, and the amount of resource-intensive technology has produced the Anthropocene, the new human dominated epoch on Earth.
From the perspective of consumption, the unsustainability of current situation has two components. On the one hand, non-renewable natural resources are consumed faster than substitutes are developed. On the other hand, renewable resources are used more rapidly than they can regenerate. In addition to these resource questions, humanity faces a growing waste problem, particularly related to the greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere as fossil fuels are burned (not to forget the problems related to nuclear power or other industrial wastes). The consumption of natural resources is so fast and wide-ranging that the different parts of the biosphere are not able to regenerate or receive emissions in a way that would maintain stable climate conditions typical in the previous geological epoch, the Holocene.
These issues are typically grouped together and conceptualized as a climate crisis, which is increasingly seen as being connected also to humanitarian crises. The undesired environmental changes, such as increasing floods and draught periods, impact on human living conditions and often also lead to societal unrest and armed conflicts. Economic crises of varying depth and breadth are then again primarily humanitarian crises. These crises are an inherent part of the globally networked capitalistic system that is based on continuous capital accumulation and ever-increasing economic growth.
Nonetheless, the effects related to handling the Covid-19 virus led to a new kind of humanitarian crisis, in which the crisis of the capitalistic growth economy, as well as the limitations of urbanized life, are combined. Although the next crisis of the global capitalistic system was foreboded to start already years ago, in the end it was the corona pandemic that caused the collapse of the global economy and formed the basis for the possibly worst livelihood crisis since the world wars. During the first months of the still ongoing crisis, people, especially in urban environments, were forced to stay in home quarantine and innumerable people around the world got sick. The outlook for the upcoming months is still very uncertain and does not benefit from the continuous flood of information, its inconsistency and the varying reactions to slowing down the spreading of the virus in different countries.
When considering the crises that are connected to the destruction of the biosphere, it is important to notice that the corona-induced crisis is primarily an economic-humanitarian crisis. Its undesired effects are above all related to human health and income, while its impacts have been desired from the environmental point of view. Owing to the corona restrictions people have been forced to decrease their mobility as well as to restrict their consumption, which in turn has reduced aggregate production and consumption. As a consequence of the reduced economic activity, emissions and consumption of natural resources have decreased around the world.
In other words, the corona crisis has succeeded where economic-political systems based on growing affluence or the mainstream environmental movements have failed, i.e. decreasing the quantity of production and consumption. Nevertheless, problems remain in societal priorities, although these have been put in somewhat alternative order due to the corona crisis. For the first time in decades, human health has been prioritized over profit seeking, which in turn has had the side effect of decreasing environmental burdens.
However, a fundamental problem still remains behind the humanitarian crisis: the current public discussion indicates that human well-being will be pursued through economic growth also in the future. This, or course counters the demand of deep ecologists and the degrowth movement, which call for a systematic reduction in the quantity of production and consumption in order to preserve a diverse life, while simultaneously securing livelihoods for people.
Thus, the coronavirus is not a victory for the environmentalists and nature, but only a time-space for taking a breath. It is a window showing a glimpse of what it could be like if, for instance, climate change and the socio-economic measures its alleviation calls for would be taken seriously – almost all of the airplanes stay on the ground, international travel drops down to a fraction of what is used to be, a large part of the people work from home, and so forth. One could also think that the Covid-19 crisis perhaps also uncovers, on the one hand, what is really essential for human life, but, on the other hand, how people are encouraged to behave in the capitalist growth economy – consume, consume, consume!
Alternatives needed for globalization based on urbanization
The crisis in the capitalist system is caused particularly by the weakening of economic growth prospects. And when the economy does not grow or the growth prospects are endangered, the result is humanitarian backlashes in societies that are based on economic growth and in households, which income is connected to the growth economy. Indeed, the corona pandemic has revealed the fundamental problems with a global economic system that is based on growth and investments. It has also revealed how few people in modern urban societies work with tasks related to satisfying basic needs. Many individuals and communities have only now noticed how vulnerable the system based on economic growth is, and also, how dependent they are on it. The crisis-prone growth economy, with its winners and losers, signify an uncertain and one-sided life and livelihood for many, also beyond the coronavirus.
In urbanized contemporary societies, the division of labor is deeply differentiated. Modern societies are built on economic growth, technological development and the development of the division of labor. In practice, this means that city-based societies of today are considerably more complicated than local economies in the countryside. The actors of the current economy usually operate in a certain line of business and produce mainly one commodity or service. Food is primarily produced within the industrialized agriculture scheme, in which one type, or at most a few types of plants are grown in the field with the help of tractors and other machines along with industrial fertilizers and pesticides.
As a part of these complex systems, people educate themselves in a certain field and become an expert of a particular thing. The role of money, and especially debt, is to tie individuals to the growth economy and consumption. It is a question of commoditizing the whole life, in which case human action and the destiny of the whole biosphere is determined by the economic value creation. The globalized world is a network of things, goods and people moving around everywhere – a one big, intercity system. The single-minded logic and purpose of it homogenizes cultural richness and destroys living environments.
Cities began to grow and spread and the population to grow in parallel with the increasing use of fossil fuels. The enclosure and appropriation of common land created, and still creates, the basis for the working class in the cities, which Marx called the reserve army of laborers. The global working class is created by driving people away from their lands, meanwhile industrial farming practices oppress and discipline small farmers, agricultural workers, domestic animals and the soil. Therefore, it can be claimed that the contemporary urban consumerism is based on the exploitation of the degrading rural areas as well as of the diversity of human cultures, local economies and diversity of life more generally.
The ongoing corona crisis has exposed this unsustainable development more explicitly than before. It is thus becoming increasingly clear that the one-dimensional urban globalization is not a desired model for development, neither from an environmental perspective, nor from an economic-humanitarian one. At the same time, we can notice how the demands of the growth economy and the actions related to biodiversity conservation are deeply conflicting.
Parallel systems are built in the countryside
The corona crisis has, after all, not brought new insights to the deep ecology movement. The perception of the economic-humanitarian crisis, which is caused by the coronavirus that primarily is spreading in the cities, as well as the decrease of the human caused negative environmental impacts, supports the deep ecology movement’s central claim regarding the hierarchy of separate parts and the whole. The human being is just one species among many others and part of a bigger constellation, i.e., the web of life. In the Anthropocene, most other creatures on Earth suffer from negative environmental impacts caused by humans. The actions related to taking care of the pandemic have so far mitigated these negative environmental impacts. Thus, it can be concluded that the biosphere has benefitted from the humanitarian crisis – without diminishing the human suffering or injustice the pandemic and the economic crisis have brought. On the other hand, should the human inflicted environmental destructions revert to the same level as before when the crisis is over, we have again returned to the unsustainable ‘normal’.
Instead of this ‘normal’, the deep ecology movement roots for flourishing of diverse life, not restricted to the human race or some human organizations’, cultures’ or societies’ short-term wellbeing. As a solution, the deep ecology movement suggests that the ‘interests’ of different earthbound creatures should be taken under consideration in a way that would give more space to other inhabitants of the biosphere. The most central mean for this would be to limit the economic growth and the standard of living, so as to reduce the consumption per capita among the overly affluent and overconsuming part of the human population. Limiting the growth of human population is also centrally connected to these issues – the more people there are on this planet, the more one species occupies space over others.
Now, it is seemingly evident that these ambitions cannot be reached by gradually reforming the techno-capitalist system. Instead, alternatives to it have to be created and imagined. These alternatives cannot be planned and implemented only within the growth system, which means that one has to go to its edges or totally beyond its reach. This implies a thorough consideration of the potential of the local and rural as well as a critical examination of urban globalization development.
Producing energy and food locally is an excellent way to reduce one’s ecological footprint and also a way to prepare for oil and other resource crises in the future. Already today there are many who live accordingly and represent alternatives to the global growth economy. These ‘neo-rurals’ are individuals, families and other human communities, who live outside the cities aiming for food and energy self-sufficiency in the spirit of solidarity. This growing movement at the same time strengthens the local livelihood possibilities and enriches local culture in the area. As these self-sufficient farms and villages network, socio-economic resilience also increases.
By moving to the countryside, people also have the possibility to take responsibility for their own life, their loved ones and their surroundings, as well as to reduce their dependence on the complex and unsustainable growth economy. Furthermore, a countryside every-day life, which is concentrated on basic needs, will not get disturbed by e.g. economic crises or infectious diseases spreading throughout the world. This is demonstrated by the stories told during the corona crisis by many friends and acquittances living outside the urban sphere. Trees have been cut down and chopped and land has been prepared for the growth season, just like before. On a more psychological level, many have had more time to come closer to ‘nature’, which in the best case creates a more long-lasting understanding of our interconnectedness with the environment.
However, the emergence of a parallel, increasingly rural system is certainly not easy. The move to the country brings many challenges, such as, the lack of many practical skills, the non-existing social networks and the invariably needed monetary capital, which would enable the purchase of own or common land. Particularly because of these reasons, Valtimo School of Self-Sufficiency (Omavaraopisto) and the Foundation for Sustainable Culture in Finland (Ikikaiku Elämänperintösäätiö) and other initiatives alike are extremely important for the deep ecology movement.
Finally, it can be said that the ongoing economic-humanitarian crisis has opened up the possibility for a larger cultural and socio-economic transformation. Still, the public discussion has been focused mainly on the economic reflation, which seems to be aimed at getting back the households and national economies on the growth track. Instead of putting excessive time, energy and money on figuring out where to direct the reflation, such as in wind or nuclear power plants or in train or air transportation schemes, alternatives to using the money should also be brought forward, e.g. protection of woods and water systems or even not using the money at all.
The growth economy endangers the diversity of the biosphere and consequently, the continuity of human cultures. Thus, going back to ‘normal’ should not be an option. Instead, now is the time to direct time and resources to the establishment and support of self-sufficient communities.