‘Why is a simple life seen as a deprivation?’ Photo: by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Not on your lifestyle: Margaret Roy on the hard work of change
‘We seem to be shovelling the disorder from one part of the world to another.’
W ork on the climate emergency will not end with COP26, and there’s more to it than calculating our personal carbon footprints. We seem to be shovelling the disorder from one part of the world to another.
For example, consider the shift to electric cars. These need to be powered, and our current energy crisis demonstrates the weakness of our dependency on wind farms. But the infrastructure needed for proposed tidal systems will be built in China, where coal-generated energy will be used. Equipment will then be transported to Scotland on huge barges. What fuels these?
Then there is digital technology and rare metals. The materials needed for computers and mobile phones (as well as the batteries for those electric cars) are mined, causing enormous local pollution and health problems. But these mines are not usually in the developed world, allowing us to feel clean. Digital technology itself uses enormous amounts of energy: one email with an attachment uses as much energy as a light bulb burns in one hour. Servers are housed in great warehouses that need to be cooled. And the 5G network needs satellites and microwave transmitters at 100-metre intervals just to handle all the data we seem to need…
The answer is lifestyle. The planet can no longer afford our culture of want rather than need.
Fed-up of feeling guilty and being told to restrict yourself? It could be worse. The changes needed will reach deep into how we see the world and our place on this planet. World leaders are acting from within an economic system of growth and development. Wealth creates a hierarchy of haves and have nots. We can’t see it because we are embedded in it; it structures our very thinking patterns. We are blinded. Yes, governments need to act but they are not tackling the underlying issues. How can they? Who wants such an upheaval?
Why is a simple life seen as a deprivation? While working on our upcoming conference in Edinburgh, ‘A Woman’s Perspective on Climate Change’ (3 November), I came in touch with a different kind of feminism from the global south. It was not ‘anti’ anything, and promoted a concept of ‘ubuntu’ in which the individual is embedded in community. Then I found the Earth Charter, beautifully written and with a wholesome view of community and a sustainable economy. The UK played no part in creating it! It owes so much to indigenous peoples elsewhere. We have much to learn, and unlearn. We need to say no to ego and find our place in the ecosystem proper.
