We have to take environmental issues back to their roots, says Jonathon Porritt

My life will be just that little bit poorer from now on, as I finish reading the last print issue of The Ecologist. I know it will still be published online, but I don’t do online, so for me, this final issue (and I have a copy of each one from the very first) will be it.

On the one hand, it’s a pleasant reminder of how fortunate it is that Green Futures is still going strong. But there is something about this particular moment in time which means that the shelf-presence of The Ecologist will be all the more missed.

Firstly, there’s never been a greater need for deep analysis. Far too much of the environmental debate churns over at a very superficial level. Try taking some of the issues back to their roots – failed economic models, the obsession with economic growth, the dominance of tiny, very rich elites. Add to those the fact (dare I say it) that each year there are 70 million people sharing the Earth with us who weren’t there the year before – and most environmentalists lose the will to engage.

But without engaging ‘upstream’, as it were, at this level, ‘downstream’ campaigning on specific issues will never achieve anything more than damage limitation. We simply have to redesign the basic model of progress on which our economies depend. So few publications are prepared to grapple with that ‘deep framing’ – and The Ecologist is one of them.

Secondly, things are going to get a lot tougher for eco-activists over the next few years. A combination of political paralysis, corporate vested interest and our conservative, co-opted media, ensures mounting anger among campaigners. And many of the basic entitlements protecting the rights of dissenting voices have been eroded by one of the most authoritarian governments the UK has ever had.

And thirdly, all of that means we are all caught up now in a constant, complex negotiation about speed of travel.  These days, there’s more and more of a consensus about the destination (a more equitable, ultra-low-carbon, hyper-efficient economy), but the controversy is in how we get there. Do we go fast and furious now, and just take the hit in terms of high-cost, high-risk, roll-outs of new technologies? Or do we go as cautiously (and slowly) as we have over the last, lost decade, and wait for technologies like Concentrating Solar Power and Carbon Capture and Storage to catch up?

And this debate is going to get even more controversial. The writing’s on the wall about climate change, and it’s clear that many carbon-intensive assets, which have already received a huge amount of investment, will never pay back in a low-carbon world.

Witness the corporate backlash in the US against President Obama’s dynamic efforts to address global warming. As soon as it became known that his election pledges were for real, all those big oil, coal and other CO2-intensive industries started putting aside tens of millions of dollars to fund a nationwide advertising campaign directly attacking the President’s proposals.

Déjà-vu? After decades of redneck intransigence across the US, and eight years of George Bush in the White House, it’s unbelievable to think that yet more time will be wasted as a consequence of these malign, corporate interests.

There are many, many great companies in the world today, playing their part in securing a more sustainable future. But there are also some shocking ones – and we need to keep speaking truth to that reality. The Ecologist has done that as well as any publication in the world – which is why I, for one, will miss it so much.

Jonathon Porritt is Founder Director of Forum for the Future and Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission.

13 July 2009

Jonathon Porritt