“What can I do to help coral reefs?” is a question that I’m often asked by eager citizens from all over the country. To be honest, my first reaction is a heavy sigh as I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time contemplating an appropriate answer to this question.“I suppose we need to think hard about the scope of the problem and how individual choices – as much as they make us feel good – may not amount to much, given the economic system we follow.” This of course is met with bewilderment and people wonder why I do not give a simple answer like the early 2000s advertisements by BP or ExxonMobil. In my defence, this question is one of the most difficult to answer. I don’t usually have the luxury of time to explain myself any better as other, more optimistic scientists are quick to offer solace to people seeking an equally quick answer. But I can explain myself better through written words and perhaps convince you to look at the real issue behind our climate crisis and the uncertain future we inherit.Let’s examine the question with an example of the ecosystem I study.In an earlier article, I grieved the state of coral reefs and how their future remains bleak. What does this mean for a place like the Lakshadweep? Kavaratti, the capital, is a tiny 3 square-kilometres island that harbours about 11,200 people.They’re bounded by coral reefs, beyond which lies the inhospitable open ocean. People’s daily lives must happen within the limits of these coral reefs. We need arable land to grow food and build shelter, so space is a constraint. We need food, which the reefs and open ocean provides, but this resource is exhaustible, and must be managed carefully. The reefs of Kavaratti can surely provide for the 11,200 people of the island but scale this up to supply fish to mainland India, and you soon run into problems of overfishing and other ecological consequences that follow.Freshwater accumulates as groundwater during rainfall events and is critical in ensuring year-long habitation of these islands. The reefs act as a physical barrier, thwarting large oceanic swell waves that bombard these islands. Knowing these geophysical and ecological constraints, and realising that people call this place home, does this go against how Lakshadweep is advertised in the mainstream media? To me, Lakshadweep can no longer be viewed as a commodity for us to consume in whatever manner we see fit.Addressing the elephant in the roomSpeaking of commodities, my hesitation to answer the question of individual climate action is tied to the prevalent economic order we live in – capitalism. I may have lost a few readers by typing this, but bear with me. To me, the ultimate driver of our climate crisis is capitalism’s insatiable thirst for unending growth. You needn’t take my word for it. Kenneth E. Boulding, an economist, was famously quoted saying, “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist”.The 2019 pandemic halted our capitalistic mode of living and yet, CO2 emissions dropped by a mere 5.4%, which of course shot back up as the world recovered from this event. It seems, even if the world comes to a standstill, there is no respite for our planet from the effects of global warming. Capitalism, at its very core, is a positive feedback loop where input of money leads to commodity production, which leads to greater capital generation and so on and so forth. However, there are clear limitations to this, as material must be extracted from the earth and processed with labour to create a commodity. The problem arises when we prioritise concepts such as ‘efficiency’, ‘production’, and ‘growth’, as humans find innovative ways to extract more and more from a piece of land, leading to greater environmental stress. Ecological systems simply cannot replenish themselves with our rates of extraction and production.An example from the system I study is the concept of maximum sustainable yield of fisheries, a magic number that tells us how much fish we can extract. It is the guiding principle of all fisheries institutes. Fish, perhaps due to our vast evolutionary distance, are not accorded the same sentiments as chickens, pigs, and buffaloes. Shoals of fish are resources – just like cobalt seams that must be harvested to fuel the now, ever-increasing demand for renewable energy. If in our hubris we are proven wrong in our estimation of a fish stock, we can quickly move on to the next available fish, and then the next, till there’s none left in a collapsing coral reef. Fisheries essentially commodifies nature and aims at maximising extraction. Capitalism simply cannot increase productivity without eroding ecological limits and is inherently at odds with the finite nature of our world. It is for this reason, I believe, capitalism is ecology’s arch nemesis.Social progress versus GDP“But how can you critique our need for growth and development,” you ask?There’s plenty of literature out there that highlights how GDP is an inadequate metric of a region’s prosperity. Indeed, a report by India’s Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister on Social Progress Index has this to say: “GDP was not designed to measure the quality of life, so over-reliance on GDP and other economic measures can lead to flawed policy choices that do not respond to the actual needs and requirements of the people”.Should we then ask ourselves what we mean by ‘growth’? The same report states how i) basic human need (nutrition, water, shelter, and safety), ii) wellbeing (access to information, basic knowledge, healthcare, and environmental quality), and iii) opportunity (personal rights, personal freedom, inclusiveness, and access to advanced education) are crucial metrics that can inform our answer.A traffic policeman wearing an anti-pollution mask stands next to a digital board displaying Air Quality Index on the compound wall of a weather observatory, at Lodhi Road in New Delhi, Wednesday, on November 13, 2019. Photo: PTITake Delhi for example, GDP values for the region are quite high, but how about its environmental quality? Surely, the recent AQI reports give some indication of what I allude to. To make matters worse, ‘green’ ventures such as the conglomerate-owned Okhla powerplant burn 2000 MT of solid waste to produce 16 MW of “renewable power”. This is a textbook example of ‘greenwashing’ and has been investigated thoroughly. While the establishment of this power station and its production of ‘renewable energy’ contributes to the region’s GDP, what happens to the employees and citizens who live around this supposed green industry? Powerful corporations only seek to abide by capitalism’s need for profit generation – sustainable living and livelihoods be damned. While on paper the power plant claims to convert solid waste into renewable sources of energy, what they end up producing are carcinogenic heavy metals that contaminate our soils and our lungs. Profit over people and planet.And where does Lakshadweep lie in comparison? In terms of nutrition, health care, water and sanitation, housing, education, literacy levels, and environmental quality, Lakshadweep soars above the average scores for social progress in the country. Yet, Lakshadweep is often regarded as a backward, rural region that needs to be developed for the sake of its residents. What do the stewards of Indian society mean when they want to develop the Lakshadweep? Sure, the region can always benefit from bolstering the resilience of the community to both economic and climate shocks, but it is almost certain that the commodification of the islands driven by outside influence, will not have this agenda.Scarcity and inequalityThe modus operandi of capitalism is to influence our perception of scarcity and then manufacture a desire to procure this scarce product. And those who do not have the means to acquire this newly scarce object slide into poverty or worse. The declining air quality in Delhi, for example, will most likely see a surge in the production and consumption of air purifiers. Around the world, more and more water samples test positive for microplastics, with accumulation in our brains and tissues, innovative ways to filter these harmful contaminants are devised and sold to the masses. Objects as fundamental as air and water have been rendered scarce and so degraded that we need to buy specialised equipment to even access them. We of course must do everything we can to safeguard ourselves from unsafe food, water, and air, but are we not lulled into a sense of security every time a new technology is advertised?And what about the ones who cannot afford to buy clean air, water and food? Or have access to decent housing and shelter? Every summer, when climate change induced heatwaves and drought hits the Indian subcontinent, how many lives are lost due to the lack of basic human amenities, even in our urban centres? Since the 1990, the richest 1% of the global population have contributed to a staggering 23% of all greenhouse gas emissions. This is not just a problem of unequal consumption but of unequal production as well, since the richest individuals are often CEOs of multinational companies steering the wheel of global capitalism. You may, and I certainly, do not belong to this class of society but quite likely bear many repercussions. Further, 63% of the global inequality in individual emissions is now due to a gap between low and high emitters within countries rather than between countries. It is no longer a problem of the rich in high-income nations, but the problem with the rich of all nations.So…what can I do about climate change?Climate change is a complex issue whose roots lie deep within the heart of capitalism and critics have been voicing their concern for over 150 years. In fact, the question of individual action stems not just from a place of genuine concern, but also from years of advertisement by oil giants such as BP and ExxonMobil that shifts the blame to individual choices of everyday people. The idea that your individual choice of consumption determines whether we achieve humanity’s climate targets or not is criminal! This takes away blame from fossil fuel giants and places it upon our shoulders in the form of carbon footprints. How can we be expected to alter our livelihoods when the majority of us live hand-to-mouth? Technology immersed in capitalism cannot pull us out of climate change since capitalism is how we got here in the first place. It is the same economic order repackaged and advertised in an eco-friendly light, i.e. greenwashing and capitalism.The Global North, having gone through their era of growth and prosperity by exploiting the global south, are at the zenith of growth. The imperial core of the global north (the US, Canada, the EU, Australia, and the likes) could achieve a high quality of life by displacing all costs onto their peripheries such as India, where cheap labour exists, and environmental degradation can occur without any harm to the ones driving the plunder. The problem arises when India too, decides to follow a capitalist path of growth. But we do not have a periphery to displace all our environmental and social problems; nor should we. The richest 1% of the population needs to consume and produce less. In a time when taxation is crippling the masses, why is it that the richest individuals remain relatively unscathed by such economic decisions? At its core is a problem of unequal distribution of wealth and resources. How do we rectify this? One should certainly strive for a more conscious way of living but what else?Do we have clean air and water where we live? If not, why do we not write to our elected representatives and demand for such basic needs en masse? Why do we not interact with our neighbours and speak about the declining groundwater levels in Bengaluru; choking air and river contamination in Delhi; or waste management in Lakshadweep? How many of us can say that we have engaged with the most difficult task of seeking company in our times of ecological distress? In a world that’s increasingly divisive and individualistic, how do we rebuild a sense of community and shared identity? How do we move away from a scarcity-driven society and create avenues for abundance? When social contracts with our municipality or governments fail, why do we not take up the initiative ourselves and work towards gaining ownership over our commons?In my opinion, this is what one can do about dying coral reefs in the Lakshadweep. This is not to say that your and my environmentally-friendly choices do not matter, but it doesn’t address the systemic problem we are left with. This is a slow fight at the level of the individual but as a collective, we could certainly speed up the process. Let’s start conversing with one another, share our grief, educate ourselves and think critically. Support civil societies and join NGOs with whom you feel you could make a difference. If none exist, start one! Form unions and collectives so that the powerful cannot easily squash our demands. Recognise the ecological limits of the region you reside in and observe how we’ve transgressed them. Not necessarily because of our choices, but because a few individuals dictate how progress and development should be achieved.We need clean air, water, safer roads, more public transport, nutritious food, basic housing and healthcare, minimum respectable wages, greater environmental education, and all other metrics that lead to a secure and dignified life on a liveable planet. All the factors that have been highlighted in India’s Social Progress Index are things we should focus on and not merely GDP and growth. Can we not imagine an alternate path to social progress and a decent standard of living? There are brave new alternatives being proposed, that move away from growth-based economies to ones that are just and equitable, which do not require us to live in austerity. To those who say that this is the only way of doing things, quote them a line by Ashley C. Ford. “The goal of oppressors is to limit your imagination about what is possible without them, so you might never imagine more for yourself and the world you live in”.Mayukh Dey is an ecologist currently working in the Lakshadweep Archipelago with the Nature Conservation Foundation
