Meeting held on Monday 21st May 2018
Three people were present. Seven sent their apologies.
We briefly discussed the very low attendance at the meeting and concluded that, given that most had sent their apologies, this was probably just a coincidence.
The evening’s discussion centred on a close consideration of some of the fundamental themes underpinning a concern for environmental damage.
Were economic considerations always given a prominence over environmental ones? It certainly seemed that rarely was any environmental protection measure taken that would involve significant costs. But the issue here may not be so much the predominance of economic considerations as the predominance of an inappropriate economic model.
We also wondered whether, historically, the human and natural worlds were always in a state of tension, with human activity aimed at controlling, protecting from, making a profit from, or in other ways exploiting, the natural world. This leads to the question of whether the natural world should be respected for its own sake, or whether it is should be used to further human (and economic) interests. The former position leads to ‘dark green’ forms of environmentalism. The latter position sees the protection of the environment as simply a more enlightened requirement for ensuring that it continues to serve human needs. In this mix there is also a fear of nature and the wild. In less developed countries this may take the form of a fear of wild animals who may attack livestock. In developed countries it may take form of insulating natural land in parks and protected areas keeping it as an opportunity for leisure rather than part of our everyday life.
Focussing on air pollution from vehicles in particular, we wondered whether the ‘enlightened capitalism’ of Elon Musk, suggested a contribution to the way forward with his ‘pollution free’ vehicles, battery development and energy reconfiguration. Or would such changes be merely ‘technological fixes’ which would, in the longer run, simply compound the problem by increasingly the need for travel which may involve other environmental costs.
We thought in more detail about what might be meant by ‘technological fix’. For example, were significant changes in knowledge and beliefs (for example, regarding air pollution’s effect upon health) forms of technological fix, or did it refer to policies employing material techniques and actions? While we found no difficulty in identifying changes that would seem desirable (Iike pollution free vehicles) we were less sure about such developments changing the fundamental question of our relationship to the environment which need to be addressed.