TD866_1
Nature matters in conversation
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This free course is an adapted extract from the Open University course TD866 Environmental responsibility: ethics, policy and action http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/course/td866.htm . This version of the content may include video, images and interactive content that may not be optimised for your device. You can experience this free course as it was originally designed on OpenLearn, the home of free learning from The Open University: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/nature-environment/the-environment/nature-matters-conversation/content-section-0 . There you’ll also be able to track your progress via your activity record, which you can use to demonstrate your learning. The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA Copyright © 2016 The Open University
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Head of Intellectual Property, The Open University Designed and edited by The Open University 978-1-4730-1455-8 (.kdl) 978-1-4730-0687-4 (.epub) Introduction This unit explores different understandings of nature and environment and the significance these may have for developing responsibility. The problems of connecting human and non-human nature are presented here as being a challenge peculiar to the concerns of environmental responsibility. They provide the impetus for exploring the idea of ‘conversation’ as a metaphor for what matters in environmental responsibility. Using a reading by Stephen Talbott as a foundation, the conversation metaphor is introduced as a way of re-conceiving ongoing human relationships with nature, not only providing insight into environmental responsibility but also delineating issues of communication as what matters in this field, in contrast to other areas of environmental studies. This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course TD866 Environmental responsibility: ethics, policy and action . After studying this course, you should be able to: appreciate different connotations and traditions of the terms ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ in the context of environmental responsibility use conversation as a core metaphor for describing ‘what matters’ in environmental responsibility identify and compare formal and less formal expressions of environmental responsibility. 1 Environment: the challenges of what matters 1.1 Natures and environments The title of this unit is deliberately ambiguous. From one standpoint, the assertive dominant emphasis on nature in ‘nature matters’ is one that rings true amongst many environmentalists. What matters in environmental responsibility is what might widely be referred to as nature. This unit might be expected to be about how to argue the case for prioritising nature above other concerns. However, if instead the assertive emphasis is placed on matters , you may anticipate that the unit will cover the wide array of matters associated with nature. Both understandings are relevant and trigger questions regarding the meanings attached to the terms ‘nature’ and ‘environment’. To begin, if what matters most is nature, how might an environmentalist draw a boundary around matters of nature? What actually is ‘nature’ and how might it be different from ‘environment’? Activity 1 Describing nature Think for a few minutes about the meaning of the word ‘nature’. How would you describe it to someone not familiar with the concept? Compare your responses to those presented in Box 1 . Jot your notes down. Activity 2 Nature and environment What differences are there between your understanding and use of the term ‘nature’, and your understanding and use of the term ‘environment’? Jot your notes down. The word ‘nature’ can be used to describe a behavioural attribute –‘it’s in our nature to be selfish’ – or as a noun to denote an entity, although here there is often uncertainty as to what it specifically means. Your responses to Activities 1 and 2 may have touched on the difficulties associated with describing nature as something distinctively non-human. For this reason, a distinction often made is that between human and non-human nature. This distinction is sometimes accentuated and given further weight and acceptance when using the term ‘environment’. Box 1 presents some descriptions of nature that were collated by Riyan van den Born from a sample of lay citizens (people not professionally associated with environmental management) in the Netherlands. Box 1 What is nature? In his paper on lay people’s attitudes towards nature, van den Born describes a typical respondent’s thought processes as follows (2008, p. 93): When thinking about whether humans are part of nature or not, the respondent first says yes, then has doubts, because humans do not really grow up in nature. She does not know whether to say yes or no, but tends towards no, because ‘it has something to do with nature and culture ’. When asked for her own definition of nature, this respondent answered: ‘nature is everything that grows and flourishes … So, that would include humans … But I am thinking more of plants and animals ’.
He then goes on to quote other respondents (ibid.): [I]t is only possible to stay in contact with nature when there is respect for nature. If we are not careful, we deny our place in nature. We cannot be untouched anymore; for that you must be in the inlands of Brazil, then you are one with nature. [W]hen I see what people are doing, it does not have much to do with nature anymore.
Later in the paper, viewpoints are expressed regarding the relationship between humans and nature (pp. 96 – 8): Nature gives us a lot, that we can use, medicines, oil … But are we equal with nature? … What do we give back? A lot of filth and dirt. Because humans have more possibilities than nature, we can destroy things. I think that brings along responsibility … that you should handle consciously. When you walk through nature you think what little idiots we are. When you see the mountains or a waterfall, then you feel the power of nature. We cannot do anything against it. We are a part of nature … we are at the top of the [food] chain, but nature keeps embracing us. [H]umans are part of nature, because [nature] contains the living and the non-living entities. When I am in nature, it doesn’t matter whether it is by the sea or in the woods, I have the feeling that it does something to me. It gives me a certain peace of mind. I cannot describe it, and I do not know whether it is really spiritual. In nature, things occur that you cannot totally understand, that also gives you amazement about nature. In this, trust between nature and myself plays a major role … which gives me an immediate connectedness in nature … then you come in an area between nature and God, for me, that is spirituality.
Do any of the impressions in Box 1 resonate with your own understanding of nature as expressed in Activities 1 and 2 ? The key feature of resonance for me is the recurring reminder of the integral relationship between human and non-human nature. As you can see from the descriptions in Box 1 , there is a shared implicit understanding of nature as an entity – although what kind of entity is unclear. Kate Soper (1995) makes a distinction between first, ‘nature’ as a codified construction that is often contested in its meaning (and that hence is sometimes put in inverted commas), and second, Nature as an extra-discursive reality, something that we acknowledge as existing outside conceptual construction or any attachment to human meaning; something that we have limited knowledge about, yet that also includes ourselves as humans. So how might our different understandings of ‘nature’ compare with our use of the term ‘environment’? And what significance might this have for considering what matters in environmental responsibility? While nature (whether ‘nature’ or Nature) tends to be inclusive of humans to some extent, environment is commonly regarded more as something external. One way of understanding the term ‘environment’ is as follows: ‘The environment of an entity can usually be described as that which surrounds it, affects it and in most cases is affected by it. The entity concerned may refer to an individual (as in my environment) or a group of living and/or non-living things (as in an organisation’s environment).’ Making reference to environment rather than nature is very common, particularly in most industrialised countries of the global North, but its use can tend to reinforce the idea of non-human nature having a more instrumental rather than intrinsic value. The term ‘environment’ can carry connotations of nature as being mere ‘resources’, or as being some source of externalised ‘threat’. So in what sense might we understand ‘environment’ as something more integral to human flourishing? To help answer this question, I shall start by stepping back to look at the origins of the term (Box 2 ). Box 2 The nineteenth-century environment The concepts of ecology and environment are both products of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. The precise stimulus of their creation was Darwinian biology. The underlying condition which made them of interest was man’s changing and accelerating interaction with other things: the astonishingly rapid urbanisation and industrialisation of Britain, setting a paradigm for other nations to follow, and the rapid colonisation of the non-European world, especially the United States. ‘Environment’, in a loose and rare way, already existed in English; it is an application of the French environner , to surround. It acquired a more precise meaning as ‘The conditions under which any person or thing lives or is developed; the sum total of influences which modify and determine the development of life or character’. Herbert Spencer was using the term in this way in 1855 … By the 1880s scientists were giving it the more pithy definition: ‘the sum total of the external conditions of life’. As German geography became influential in British universities it acquired a meaning with a geographical or economic slant, specifically concerned with human activity, as a translation of the German umwelt . (Source: Allison, 1991, p. 26) According to the view presented by Allison in Box 2 , the external conditions of life of any creature – that is, its environment in this sense – expand outwards as we consider them: the conditions that impinge directly on the creature, the conditions of those conditions, and so on until we reach the level of global conditions (stopping there for convenience). This structure of the sequential nesting of environments, one within another from the local to the global level, leads to the conclusion that most of our interactions with the natural world can be described in terms of global impacts. This is at the root of the modern scientific idea of environment (Figure 1 ). Figure 1 Modern concept of environment Figure 1 However, a contrasting perspective is provided by David Cooper, whose argument is presented in Box 3 . Cooper criticises the ‘scientific’ concept of environment (which he calls The Environment) as being too vague, calling instead for a more ‘local’ understanding of the term. Box 3 Towards a more local meaning of environment In his 1992 article ‘The idea of environment’, David Cooper characterises the ‘global’ conception of ‘environment’ as a notion of ‘something much too big … nothing less than nature itself … the whole natural order … there is just one big environment – the biosphere, the order of things’ (p. 167). This is essentially the same conception implied by the nested structure inherent in the idea of ‘the sum total of the external conditions of life’ mentioned in Box 2 . He also identifies this conception – which he calls, to match its size, The Environment – with the scientific worldview, claiming that ‘Ecology is as much of a leveller as any other physical science, since the environments of which it speaks are merely instances of general mechanistic processes’ (p. 171). Having criticised the modern conception of the environment as too vague, Cooper goes on to present a contrasting and much older concept of ‘environment’ – one that in important ways is distinct from the scientific conception, and that encounters less difficulty in making moral sense of our relationships with the natural world. He invokes words such as ‘milieu’, ‘ambience’ and ‘neighbourhood’ to indicate that this older idea characterises environment as somewhere where a creature belongs: ‘An environment as milieu is not something a creature is merely in, but something it has’ (p. 169). Environment is what a creature is ‘at home’ in. It constitutes for the creature ‘an arena of significance … in which it can develop the degree of mastery over its life which is appropriate for its species’ (p. 179). The key point emerging from Cooper’s alternative conception of the environment is that a creature’s relationship to its environment is an intentional , or active, one – that is, it has to do with how the creature looks at and understands its surroundings, and the pattern of significance it derives from those surroundings. According to this alternative conception, what constitutes a creature’s (including a person’s) environment will be limited by, because it is defined in terms of, the scope of what has real and direct significance for that creature. Cooper goes on to point out that concern for environment envisaged as a field of significance will not generally be liable to the kinds of problem that affect our ability to apply ethical principles at the global level. This is because:
Ignorance and uncertainty will be much less significant factors, as we will generally know the relevant effects within a limited range fairly directly; where the significance of a milieu for the people who belong in it is concerned, we can even take the simple course of asking them.
Responsibility for harm or damage to an environment comparatively near at hand will typically not be hidden and lost in some complex causal nexus, but will be out in the open.
On the basis of this alternative, intentional conception of ‘environment’ recaptured by Cooper, the notion of global environment makes little sense. For in Cooper’s alternative conception, an environment is defined as an arena of significance for a creature ; and the globe, the world as a whole, cannot constitute such an arena of significance for any creature, not even for humankind. This is not to deny that we have imaginative and intellectual capacities that enable us to envisage the world as a whole, to be concerned about its condition and to understand at least something of how our actions affect it. These are the capacities on which we draw for the new vision of planetary integrity and fragility. The world can matter to us as a whole in this way, and to that extent might be said to form the arena of a kind of significance: a kind that is obviously of great and growing importance as human populations put increasing strain on the planet’s ecological resources. However, it is clear that this is not the kind of ‘significance’ that Cooper builds into his definition of the older conception of environment. What he intends by the term is an intuitively recognised meaningfulness, the upshot of ‘unreflective familiarity’, ‘being at home’ and ‘knowing one’s way about’ – the kind of relationship in which we can stand only to a defined and specific milieu. Such a milieu may in specialised cases be geographically dispersed, but some fairly obvious features of human nature and scale mean that environments defined in this sense are, in general, comparatively localised. Certainly we cannot stand in this kind of relationship to the world as a whole, or even to substantial tracts of it. We may ask why the field of that sort of intimate, intuitive relationship of practical familiarity should be taken to define ‘environment’ in the context of a concern about our dealings with the natural world around us. Cooper’s point here is that it is only in terms of such a relationship that the deepest and most characteristic aspects of that concern are intelligible. Our essential need for unity with our natural surroundings, for belonging integrally to something unique and precious of which we need also to stand in awe, is what gives real strength and substance to the modern goal of ecological sustainability. This kind of concern cannot be transferred to The Environment, the global dimension; and without it, ‘environmentalism’ tends to the hollowness and rhetorical strain that Cooper identifies. According to Cooper, although environment remains distinct from humans (or any other creature), the term needs retrieval of a deeper integral sense of significance compared with the more abstract ideas of The Environment perpetuated through ideas of global warming, the global economy, etc. At the most fundamental level, environment can only be understood locally (Figure 2 ). Figure 2 Goldfish bowl Cooper’s distinction between more localised ideas of environment and wider scientific notions of The Environment resonates with Soper’s distinction, mentioned earlier, between ‘nature’ as a codified construction and Nature as an extra-discursive reality. However, the two sets of terms are not necessarily equivalent. Cooper’s idea of environment represents a more integral relationship between human and non-human nature, which may seem to conform more with the actual reality of Nature as understood by Soper. Similarly, The Environment as described by Cooper might be considered to be an abstracted idea of Nature, or more precisely ‘nature’. But what might all of this mean for nurturing a particular understanding of nature for environmental responsibility? The ambiguous meanings associated with the title Nature matters might, I suggest, be associated with the contrasting ideas described above of nature and environment respectively:
First, where the emphasis is on nature rather than matters, the tension between ‘nature’ and Nature appears to be particularly relevant. In advocating a sense that nature matters, the sense of responsibility lies more with the caring dimension. It invites a concern for what constitutes nature and our own particular relationship with it. In caring for planet Earth or a tropical rainforest, the actual realities do of course matter, but in nurturing appropriate responsibility it is our value-based conceptions of earth or forest in relation to those actual realities that perhaps matter more.
Second, where the emphasis is on matters rather than nature, the tension between ‘environment’ and Environment would appear to have particular relevance. Nature matters are environmental matters of significance associated with nature, inviting more the sense of responsibility associated with the accountability dimension. This invites concern for what is particularly significant about environments such that we may wish to devise measures of accountability – and this is inevitably based on what we register as being significant in our environment.
To put it briefly, what we care for will depend on whether we focus on ‘nature’ or Nature; and what we consider ourselves to be accountable for will depend on whether we focus on environment or Environment. These two dimensions of responsibility are further explained and illustrated below. For both dimensions – caring and ensuring accountability – I shall argue that attention needs to be given to where we stand as humans in relation to non-human nature; that is, the connectedness between human and non-human nature. However, before moving on I would like to make a final point about the ideas introduced above. In everyday language – including language used amongst professionals – the terms nature and environment are used interchangeably or synonymously. No differentiation is made between upper-case and lower-case variants (e.g. Nature and nature), nor are terms usually made questionable or explicitly contested through the use of inverted commas. But in fleshing out nature matters in relation to environmental responsibility, it is perhaps as well to remind ourselves as Homo sapiens (people, folk, citizens, communities, cities, economies, private corporations, nations, regions and intergovernmental bodies) of three important issues:
Whilst environmental responsibility involves some understanding of the natural world, there are essential limits to our understanding of the (upper-case) natural world to which we belong, whether this is understood as the extra-discursive realm of integral relationships (including humans) that Soper calls Nature, or more scientifically as some globalised conception of The Environment.
Ideas of nature and environment (using inverted commas) are often contested depending on the practical situation and personal perspective taken. In any particular instance, for example, one person’s idea of nature might be more inclusive of, say, humans than another person’s perspective; similarly, an environmental issue might be regarded by some people as being more local than global, whereas for others it is the other way round.
Given the idea that natures and environments are partial (both in the sense of being incomplete and in the sense of being subject to perspective), it is helpful to have some appreciation of the human purpose behind the use of these terms. So, for example, the two generalised purposes of environmental responsibility – caring for and ensuring accountability for harm and wrong – may invite particular use of terms such as nature and environment respectively.
The aim here is not to set out some standardised lexicon of environmental terminology; rather, it is simply to sharpen your awareness of the need to contextualise the use of these words. 1.2 Connecting human and non-human nature Environmental responsibility – caring and generating accountability – requires interaction between human and non-human nature. For example, from a caring perspective what matters in climate change might constitute, say, the continued existence and protection of an arctic wilderness (Figure 3 ). But this necessarily involves a connection between human perception and appreciation of such a wilderness (‘nature’) and the actual wilderness itself (Nature), which may or may not actually contain humans. Figure 3 Perception of care: polar bear in arctic wilderness In contrast, from a perspective of accountability what matters might be not so much the (human-constructed) perceptions associated with preserving some wilderness, but rather the (human-designed) measures used to signify change in the environment (temperature rise, biodiversity loss, glacier movement or other such variables) as appropriate devices for representing problems of the global environment. Human-designed measures, such as Michael Mann’s famous ‘hockey stick’ depiction of climate change using actual and anticipated temperature changes (Figure 4 ) are, not surprisingly, open to debate. Figure 4 Measures of accountability: ‘hockey stick’ depiction of climate change Caring for an arctic wilderness is dependent on a relationship between our perceptions of what this wilderness represents and the actual wilderness itself. Generating accountability for, say, global climate change involves human design in measuring significant levels of temperature change that might be used as a gauge in relation to any harm done to the actual environment. (Here, of course, I am using the term environment to include both human and non-human nature.) In both cases – caring and accountability – it is the relationship between human and non-human nature that ultimately matters, including the actual act of making a distinction between the two natures. We can perhaps differentiate here between what I think matters in the realm of ‘environmental responsibility’ and what matters in more formal disciplines associated with environmental studies. In the natural sciences, for example, what primarily matters is an understanding of the entities themselves (living and non-living) and the complex interrelationships and interdependencies amongst them. On the other hand, what primarily matters in environmental studies associated with the social sciences is the multiple and changing human interests associated with natural phenomena. Both sets of scientific endeavours are important for drawing out matters of importance for environmental responsibility, but I would argue that what primarily matters in the field of environmental responsibility is the relationship between human and non-human nature. So how might we conceive this relationship? Caring for environment and developing appropriate measures of accountability suggest two types of relationship between human and non-human nature that can be likened to relationships in an idealised family – an analogy used by van den Born (2008) that I find useful for adaptation here. ‘Caring’ relates to the sense of belonging in a family. In an ideal-type family there might be an intuitive mutual understanding of care between members, where they may voluntarily contribute towards some collective commitment to ensuring family togetherness. From a caring perspective, members are co-respondents in the sense of having equal standing. ‘Accountability’ speaks to a more specific relationship, formalised and rather more distant, as sometimes experienced between a parent and a child. In such a relationship, a responsible parent provides not only care but also protection, by constructing guidelines and rules to ensure some level of agreed-upon compliance in fostering responsibility. Drawing on this analogy, the human relationship with non-human nature can be similarly understood. First, as mutual partners in the survival of a shared planet or universe, human and non-human life might be regarded as nurturing a sense of collective destiny and care for an environment to which we collectively contribute. Second, at times the relationship may require humans to stand above nature, somehow negotiating rules of behaviour to ensure appropriate accountability and compliance to protect against harm and wrong. The important relationship in environmental responsibility – like that of an idealised family – is one of communication . This applies to both caring and developing accountability. As with fostering effective family dynamics, including the protection of more vulnerable members such as young children, environmental responsibility requires elements of developing respect for non-human nature through continual informal negotiation on obligations and entitlements, as well as the more formal elements of establishing duties and making claims about what is right and wrong in order to guide our interaction w 2 Conversation: a metaphor for what matters 2.1 Conversing with environment Consider a situation involving what might be regarded as eco-social collapse. For example, the trigger of global warming (caused primarily by use of fossil fuels in developed countries) has encouraged the rapid development of biofuel agriculture through grants from rich countries in the global North to Brazil and other tropical countries in the global South. This has generated both ecological problems (deforestation, pesticide pollution, etc.) and socio-economic problems – particularly with concentration of land tenure, very poor working conditions for those forced to provide cheap labour for biofuel plantations, and increasing food prices for the population (Sawyer, 2008). Such a complex situation involves many different interactions amongst many different entities, human and non-human. To what extent might such a situation arise from breakdowns in the quality of communications? Apart from the importance of inter-human communication, there might also be important factors associated with the quality of our ‘communication’ with the natural world. But in what sense might we converse with the environment? Steve Talbott, a US environmentalist, writer and researcher, picks up the idea of communication with non-human life worlds by drawing on the metaphor of conversation. Talbott regards the quality of communication, particularly between human and non-human nature, as being fundamental to the kinds of problems associated with eco-social collapse described above. In making the case for a different type of relationship with nature, he explores ‘conversation’ as a means of revealing what might constitute a more constructive and respectful relationship. In his essay ‘Toward an ecological conversation’ (2004), Talbott’s principal subject to converse with is the chickadee, a species of small North American bird that he helps to feed along with other wildlife through a special feeder device at a time in winter when food for birds is very scarce. Talbott clearly expresses an intuitive care for such non-human nature, but he is also concerned about contributing towards a more formal endeavour of responsibility. He brings out the tensions between two perspectives on ecological issues: the more ecocentric ‘radical preservationist’ tradition, and the more anthropocentric ‘scientific management’ tradition. The essay explores what it means to undertake an ecological conversation, using this as a metaphor to overcome the sometimes intransigent positioning of each tradition. I shall refer back to Talbott’s ideas in subsequent sections, but for now make some general notes on what he has to say. Activity 3 An ecological conversation Read ‘Toward an ecological conversation’ by Steve Talbott (2004). View document SAQ 1 How conversation aids environmental responsibility Describe three ways in which Talbott regards the metaphor of conversation as helpful for appreciating environmental responsibility. Answers Three attributes of conversation as a metaphor can be listed:
In human conversation we inevitably make mistakes in what we say, but have opportunities to apologise and to correct ourselves.
Words used in conversation can change in their meaning, acquiring new and different meanings as the conversation continues; there are always opportunities for building upon past inadequacies and going through some ‘healing’ process.
In conversation there is never a single right or wrong response; rather, a conversation is a continually experimental exchange, allowing for a sense of creativity.
The idea of conversing with nature is not particularly new, though more often it is associated with endeavours of the ‘arts’ (poetry, prose, music, performance arts, etc.) rather than scientific pursuits, where the notion is traditionally derided as being ‘irrational’. But what is it that we are supposed to be conversing with? To what extent can we make sense of the idea of a conversation with Nature and Environment, as described by Soper and Cooper respectively? The Other that Talbott refers to is not something completely detached from humanness – and when it is detached, opportunities for conversation are lost. Talbott claims, for example, that an extreme preservationist position denies human presence and contrives ‘nature’ as something that ought to be untouched, often stated with extreme worldly reverence – what Talbott calls the hypostatization of nature (2004, pp. 43– 4): There is no such thing as a nature wholly independent of our various acts to preserve (or destroy) it. You cannot define any ecological context over against one of its creatures – least of all over against the human being. If it is true that the creature becomes what it is only by virtue of the context, it is also true that the context becomes what it is only by virtue of the creature. This can be a hard truth for environmental activists to accept, campaigning as we usually are to save ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ may be. In conversational terms, the Other does not exist independently of the conversation. We cannot seek to preserve ‘it’, because there is no ‘it’ there; we can only seek to preserve the integrity and coherence of the conversation through which both it and we are continually transforming ourselves. Hypostatization is always an insult because it removes the Other from the conversation, making an object of it and denying the living, shape-changing, conversing power within it.
The challenge set by Talbott is how to converse meaningfully with the environment from a perspective of caring and accountability. Talbott’s distinction between ‘radical preservationist’ and ‘scientific management’ signals what he describes as ‘two very different conversations’ (p. 55). I shall refer to these as an informal and a more formal conversation respectively. They resonate with the two domains of responsibility – caring and accountability. For now, I shall examine what these conversations might look like in relation to environmental responsibility. 2.2 Informal and formal conversations The process of conversation is, of course, interactive. It requires listening (Figure 5 ) and feeding back. In human conversations the interactive process is largely enabled through a shared language. In conversing with nature the challenge is in formulating the right ‘language’, in terms of both ‘listening’ and ‘feeding back’. Any conversation – with nature or between humans – therefore requires some degree of formalisation (i.e. in the words or other language tools used). However, just as with human-to-human interaction, an ecological conversation may have varying degrees of formality. Figure 5 Nature screaming to be heard We are often confronted with the Other, either directly or indirectly through images (such as Figures 3 and 4 ). The full force of Nature can often be distressing as well as awe-inspiring, commanding fear as well as respect (Figure 6 ). So how might we engage in conversation with this natural world? Figure 7 uses the visualisation of environmental responsibility to represent conversation. Figure 6 The complex world of Nature (the Other): (a) the immense natural force of a hurricane can cause distress and fear; (b) a spectacular landscape can inspire awe; (c) taming powerful beasts can generate respect between human and non-human Figure 7 Visualising the process of environmental conversation The conversation represented in Figure 7 puts more emphasis on the formal dimension – the need to construct ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ as particular conceptual tools. Talbott’s essay gives expression, though not explicitly, to both dimensions; first, the informal in terms of a preservationist perspective, and second, the more formalised scientific management perspective. SAQ 2 Radical preservationism and conversing informally with the Other? Refer back to the Talbott reading. In terms of contributing towards an ongoing ecological conversation:
What reservations does Talbott have about the position of ‘radical preservationism’?
What significant change in mindset is required for preservationists to engage more in ecological conversation?
Answers
The radical preservationist has such complete awe and reverence towards Nature or the Other, and such total acceptance that it is unknowable, that it impedes engagement.
It is acceptable to acknowledge the mystery of Nature, but preservationists should also acknowledge that we as humans are part of that mystery and have a responsibility to express ourselves as part of Nature.
SAQ 3 Scientific management and conversing more formally with the Other? Refer back to the Talbott reading. In terms of contributing towards an ongoing ecological conversation:
What reservations does Talbott have about the position of ‘scientific management’?
What significant change in mindset is required for ‘managers’ to engage more in ecological conversation?
Answers
The scientific manager assumes that humans have a higher moral worth, and can therefore adopt an extreme anthropocentrism that treats Nature as having instrumental value only. The conversation is thus more a monologue than a dialogue.
The ‘manager’ should appreciate that what distinguishes us as humans from non-human nature is not greater moral worth; rather, we bear the burden of moral responsibility.
The conversation metaphor is helpful in delineating a role for humans in environmental responsibility. This can be seen when examining the characteristics of the two modes of conversation – informal and formal – discussed above. Although both may promote the notion of the essential integral relationship between human and non-human nature, both also regard the natural world as constituting some externalised Other (as partly suggested in Figure 7 ). Talbott reflects on this by criticising both the preservationist and the scientific management positions: ‘Both camps regard nature as a world in which the human being cannot meaningfully participate’ (2004, p. 40). This is important in two contrasting respects. First, it suggests a risk of distancing from, unbelonging superiority over and non-conversation with fellow life worlds of nature . But second, it also reminds us of the peculiarly human cognitive capacity to draw a conceptual distinction from our environment and create abstract ideas: ‘There is no disgrace in referring to the “uniquely human”. If we do not seek to understand every organism’s unique way of being in the world, we exclude it from the ecological conversation’ (ibid., p. 53). Talbott claims that an extreme ecocentric perspective – putting equal value on human and non-human nature alike – denies the unique value that humans have with respect to being morally responsible. In this sense, Talbott takes an anthropocentric (human-centred) perspective. However, he also warns against assuming human superiority: ‘nothing here implies that humans possess greater “moral worth” (whatever that might mean) than other living things. What distinguishes us is not our moral worth, but the fact that we bear the burden of moral responsibility’ (ibid.). There is here a difference between attributing moral standing to entities (i.e. recognising them as worthy of moral consideration) and attributing moral responsibility. Only humans can be morally responsible. As Peterson comments (2001, p. 219): ‘If people are “plain members and citizens” of the biotic community … then why do other members not have the same responsibilities as humans? Why should we not hold elephants responsible for deforestation, cats for endangering songbird species?’ These points have implications for the informal and formal modes of conversation. Drawing on the unique position of humans within nature, an informal conversation might involve a change in how nature is valued. Nash (1989) describes an evolution of ethics that might be seen as a gradual widening of moral consideration from the individual ‘self’ outwards to family, tribe, region, nation, towards non-human nature and even beyond (rocks, ecosystems, planet, etc.). It is perhaps debatable whether this ethical widening is indeed evident (or possibly even working the other way), though there is amongst preservationists, at least, a hope of being more inclusive in valuing non-human nature. Values are not fixed but change according to circumstances. Humans continually communicate meaning and value through developing common cultural understandings. A preservationist viewpoint implies treating something – nature – as though its value is fixed and cannot be changed. However, there have been many examples in the past in which the value attributed to certain entities was fixed for a long period of time, but then underwent a change. Think, for example, of the mainstream value given during long periods of human civilization to slaves, women, indigenous minority populations, racial groups, the poor, the disabled, etc. Although there is much that still needs to be done in changing values globally, few would deny the considerable changes that have occurred in the past two hundred years. A more formalised conversation might involve a change in the language tools used to articulate issues of significance. Scientific conversations around environment rather than nature provide a good example. Environment in scientific discourse is often viewed as little more than a set of detached entities of curiosity, or ‘resources’, or other forms of significance for human wellbeing. In the process, it becomes almost lifeless and lacking in self-autonomy, let alone having the potential for conversation. Despite his criticism of this stance, however, Talbott warns against relying totally on what I call the informal aspects of conversation. He anticipates questions regarding oneness with nature (2004, p. 46): But doesn’t all this leave us dangerously rudderless, drifting on relativistic seas? Surely we need more than a general appeal to responsibility! How can we responsibly direct ourselves without an understanding of the world and without the guidelines provided by such an understanding?
So there is a role for another type of conversation, one based on more formally conceptualising nature and creating some distance precisely in order to appreciate the particular responsibility we have as humans to offer protection, particularly given our potential for harm and wrongdoing. Of course, the biggest risk involved in conceptualising nature in this way is that we may end up seeking some ultimate, fixed understanding of nature. Talbott goes on to state, ‘Yes, understanding is the key. We need the guidelines it can bring. But these must never be allowed to freeze our conversation. This is evident enough in all human intercourse. However profound my understanding of the other person, I must remain open to the possibilities of [our] further development’ (ibid.). Guidance on improving the condition of our mutual environment – whether it’s an environment of climate change, or that of a community park or household garden – is always welcome, but to have responsible guidance requires an openness to enquiry and challenge. ‘None of us would want to see the entire world reduced to someone’s notion of a garden, but neither would we want to see a world where no humans tended reverently to their surroundings … We should not set the creativity of the true gardener against the creativity at work in our oversight of the Denali wilderness’ (Talbott, 2004, p. 55). 2.3 Using conversation to construct environmental responsibility If conversation is a creative exercise, in what sense might this be applied to the concept of responsibility around climate change? As David Cooper implies (Box 3 ), global ideas about the environment, such as climate change, are necessarily abstract and therefore lack the meaning and significance required to nurture appropriate responsibility. So the task for an appropriate ecological conversation is to make the subject matter more meaningful. Take, for example, the concepts of mitigation and adaptation described in Box 4 , which contains a synopsis of the BBC Analysis programme The wrong way to a warmer world? . This was a radio programme, first broadcast in April 2008, that discussed the tension between mitigation and adaptation in conversations about climate change. The language of adaptation can be understood in terms of a new language tool for ‘talking to’ climate change. Box 4 The wrong way to a warmer world? Mitigation and adaptation. Two words we’re going to have to get used to in the latest battle over climate change. Over the past few years the key debate has been about the science – is the world really hotting up and, if so, are humans responsible? There’s still a minority of sceptics who question the idea of man-made global warming. The consensus, though, is that the earth is getting warmer – and that humans have helped turn up the thermostat. The new debate that’s splitting scientists, economists and politicians is not about whether the world is getting hotter but about how we should respond. In this week’s ‘Analysis’, Kenan Malik examines whether we should pour all our resources into mitigation – reducing our carbon emissions individually and collectively? Or whether we should accept that the world is going to get warmer anyway and rather than worry too much about emissions, we should adapt to global warming by building better flood defences or developing drought-resistant crops? For many environmentalists, shifting the debate from mitigation to adaptation is tantamount to treason, nothing short of genocide according to the biologist Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers and voted Australian of the Year for his campaigning on climate change. He tells Analysis that the extent to which any of us can adapt to a warming planet is directly related to our economic wealth. The Netherlands may be able to pay for large dyking infrastructure in the face of rising sea levels. But the people of Bangladesh cannot and will simply be washed away. On the other side of the argument, economist Richard Tol, from the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, tells Analysis that pouring international resources into stringent greenhouse gas emission reduction is actually putting lives at risk in the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the world. Reducing our carbon emissions will be costly and will slow down economic growth in the West, taking money directly away from development aid. Furthermore by restricting industrial progress in the developing world, these countries will have less income to adapt their infrastructures to cope with inevitable rising sea levels and higher temperatures. In a significant change in language, the Minister responsible for Climate Change policy, Joan Ruddock, says that adaptation now has to be considered alongside mitigation. (Source: BBC, 2008) Any measures that might be introduced to prevent further global warming must have at least as much support as measures that will help us adapt to its current consequences. However, with the perceived shift of emphasis from mitigation to adaptation, there is a corresponding shift of responsibility away from carbon emitters and the principle of ‘polluter pays’. The more formalised conversation around scientific management and adaptation may also effectively further disengage not only big industrial polluters but also ordinary citizens, by providing comforting reassurance on their affluent lifestyles. On the other hand, ‘adaptation’ can be viewed as a metaphor that provides a means of eliciting a more creative perspective on the issue, as described in Box 5 . Box 5 Adaptation to climate change? The word ‘adaptation’ has always been important in scientific fields associated with evolution, ecology and environmental change … The advent of anthropogenic climate change has again positioned ‘adaptation’ as a key term and concept, along with ‘mitigation’… Etymologically ‘adapted’ means ‘fitted or suited’ and to adapt is ‘to fit’ or ‘make suitable’. At the level of metaphor two possible conceptions arise from these meanings which have significant practical and policy implications. The first metaphor, and we argue, the most widespread understanding, is that of ‘adaptation as fitting into’. In this metaphor something (predetermined) is fitted into a situation (also predetermined or knowable in advance) to which it is fit-able or suited, like when doing a jigsaw. It can be argued that this is a common understanding that informs many policies and practices for climate change adaptation such as: ‘New investment … will … provide new technologies and strategies to enable them [farmers] to adapt their … farming systems and practices to climate change’ [Department of Primary Industries, Australia]. The other metaphor is that of ‘adaptation as a good pair of shoes’. This metaphor requires a little more explication. What makes a good pair of shoes at a given moment? Well, usually because you have worn them in, they are comfortable, flexible etc. But these same shoes may not be a good pair of shoes if you were to put them in a cupboard for a year before wearing them again. Why? Because your feet will have changed and the shoes may have become stiff and unbending through lack of use. Within this metaphor a good pair of shoes arises from the recurrent interactions between shoes and feet – this is an example of co-evolution. This has also been described as the structural coupling of a system to its environment over time … For those who understand the dynamics of co-evolution, and are not so interested in shoes, then the metaphor can become ‘adaptation as co-evolution’. Rather than seeing adaptation as one way, co-evolution is different – the idea of a separate environment is set aside in favour of processes of mutual interaction which in human social systems can be seen as processes of learning and development. (Source: Collins and Ison, 2008) The authors in Box 5 go on to argue for an understanding of adaptation in line with ideas on social learning (which will be introduced in Part 3). What is important here is the endeavour to use language as a creative tool rather than as a formalised constraint. Building on a similar notion, another interesting proposal that attempts to alter the language of climate change is presented in Box 6 . Box 6 Creative climate The creative climate proposal comes directly out of my experience of working in broadcasting, in outreach and in teaching. But, of course, I’ve experienced those as three things that had been boxed off in the past. I’m really interested in the possibilities we’ve now got to thread those together. Creative climate is a proposal for a ten-year project, which would see us working in broadcast, online, with a wide public, global public, and in generating learning materials for our students. But we want to break the walls down between those three … So, in the case of creative climate, we know that we’re going to be giving digital media equipment to two groups of Amerindians in Guyana, who we’re going to be visiting every year over a decade. Visiting via web media, we’re going to be web conferencing with them, and they’re going to be showing their experiences of environmental change in the Amazon. It’s an example of how we can give a global reach and depth of knowledge to our students, but also be setting up conversations that are of interest to much wider groups and really globally. (Source: extracts from transcript of interview with Joe Smith, Senior Lecturer in Geography, The Open University, April 2008) Activity 4 Climate change: adaptation, mitigation or being creative? Listen to the two podcasts featuring a later interview with Joe Smith. To what extent might the creative climate project shift the conversation from the formal to the less formal? Audio 1 Martin Reynolds Hi, I’m Martin Reynolds from TD866. In 2008 I talked to Joe Smith from The Open University about the ‘creative climate’ initiative. This has implications for enhancing environmental responsibility. My conversation with Joe is divided into two podcasts. In the first we focus on the main features of the initiative, what it is and how it might look. In the second we talk about who does what and also about why the initiative is important in the wider scheme of things. Hello, Joe, thanks for joining me. The creative partnership is a partnership between the BBC and the OU. Could we begin by you giving us a brief explanation of what creative climate is? Joe Smith Creative climate is an attempt to tell the story of the decade from 2010 to 2020 and to give an account of how human ingenuity responds to the challenge of understanding and acting on climate change. I heard chief scientists, presidents, prime ministers saying that the next decade is a key decade in human history in terms of responding to climate change. And two things occurred to me. First that, well, if it’s a key decade in human history someone ought to capture it; and secondly, that actually the business of saying we’re going to create an archive was a hopeful act that would help people feel that actually this is a problem that we can probably fix. And that in trying to capture a whole range of stories about human ingenuity, creativity, imagination in response to environmental change, that actually we would reinforce society’s capacity to cope. In my dreams it involves edited broadcast stories that the BBC will produce; that might be television and radio, it might just be radio, but we’d certainly be using video on the Web – although, of course, over the decade of the project I think what TV means will have changed. We’re going to work with the BBC to tell stories of charismatic people and institutions that are, in one way or another, important to how we respond to climate change. They’re going to be following them. They’re going to be going back to them, year in year out, to see how their stories are unfolding. And those stories will follow everyone, from polar scientists through to architects, engineers, designers, right through to, you know, people like me at the weekend down on the allotments. People who are growing their own food, people that are coming up with their own solutions to how you might live a low- or zero-carbon lifestyle.That’s where I think there’s lots of interesting material going on for Open University students. We’re going to be inviting what the web-wise call ‘communities of interest’ to cluster on the creative climate site. So you might have architects or artists clustering together to, a couple of times a year, benchmark each other; swap notes, see what they’re doing, share their experiences, maybe post recent projects. And then another aspect of the web offer is for open public posting, where you or me, my grandmother, anyone in a bus queue could go and post their own experiences, experiments, ideas about understanding or responding to environmental change. Note that I’ve said environmental change, not just climate change, because we’d like biodiversity loss to be part of this conversation. Martin Reynolds You mentioned benchmarking in relation to retrieving stories from the past. Could you just say something a bit more, Joe, about the value of that process – of keeping that kind of repository? Joe Smith You know, I love history – in a parallel life I would be a historian – and I think that the period we’re going through is of historical significance. I mean, every period is, but you know we really are at a hinge point. Humanity has to get wise, and do it quickly, around how we think about resources, how we think about pollution, how we think about the character of our development. And for that reason, I think that we ought to do a good job of capturing this period so that in the future people will be able to make sense of it in a rich way. Martin Reynolds And, very clearly, the technologies that are available to us now facilitate that kind of process very well. Joe Smith Yeah – really rich textual histories, really rich oral histories. But perhaps the much more important thing – I mean, really that’s an indulgence at some level – the more important and urgent thing is that I think benchmarking could have a really significant role in allowing, as I say, the general public and specific communities of interest in accelerating progress, sharing learning. Martin Reynolds And that notion of sharing invites this idea of providing a space, and there seems something about the creative climate which is offering an alternative type of space for these types of conversations. Is that roughly about it? Joe Smith Bang on! No, thanks – thanks for raising that Martin. The Web obviously offers all sorts of new spaces for dialogue and exchange, and they’re being used, you know, whether people want them to or not. People are invading that space and doing fantastically interesting things with it.I’m really interested in the way the Web can generate new public spaces. At one level – you might think it trivial – I think the photo-sharing site Flickr has given people a whole new way of showing themselves to the world, sharing themselves, you know, family snaps among a family or, you know, keeping in touch with people they’ve met at a festival. So … just if you take some of the technologies inside that site, just a simple one – tagging – allows a whole body of the population to visit a site like Creative Climate and pursue their own interests. So I mentioned allotment holders to you earlier – well, I’m an allotment holder; one of the tags I would pursue is gardening, self-provisioning. You know, we’re going to see new ideas developing about how you can provide for yourself cheaply and healthily on your own garden. Martin Reynolds And when you talk about tagging, this is something which is a way of locating different types of conversations that are going on, on the web space – Joe Smith Yes, simply, it’s just one of a number of ways in which people can identify other people with common interests – Martin Reynolds And engage with them. Joe Smith Engage with them, post their own thoughts – it’s how we can find each other, in short, and have the conversation we want to have. Martin Reynolds This use of web space seems to bridge two purposes – a broadcasting model of disseminating lots of information, and an exchange model providing a medium for conversation. Focusing on the broadcasting model, is there a danger of the public, or even interest groups, being overwhelmed with the amount of information? Joe Smith Overwhelming, but also there is the dangers of how you, kind of, measure the authority of statements on the Web. So people who are sceptical of climate change, but without an adequate scientific basis to their claims, have caused all sorts of havoc around public understanding of this critical issue, simply because the Web gives them a space to muck around, misbehave really. Martin Reynolds So what help might be given here? Joe Smith I think what we’d like to do is to make a space where the joins between expert opinion and public debate are both a bit more explicit, but also we make a space where that can happen with a bit more confidence and a bit more authority. So people can have more confidence that their own judgements have been well considered, so people have, you know, a right and an opportunity to have their opinion and their voice heard. But they’ve also got access to the kinds of materials they need to equip themselves to take part in the debate. So, I mean, it’s a classic Open University thing to do, to act in a way as a bridge between expertise and wider public debate. Audio 2 Martin Reynolds The idea of providing and nurturing an alternative form of space for conversation is clearly an important aspect of creative climate. In this second part of my conversation with Joe, we discuss more the role of stakeholders using the space and why such initiatives might be important for environmental responsibility. Joe, you mentioned a number of different stakeholders involved with the creative climate initiative. This brings me on to the second domain of questions regarding the ‘who’. Who do you see as being the primary actors in facilitating creative climate? Joe Smith The University is at the core of the project, and a team of academics that have a strong understanding of the issues from across the science, the politics, the philosophy are going to be, if you like, central to the editorial direction of the whole thing. We’re also going to make use of The Open University’s distinctive capacities to put together interactive spaces on the Web and interactive materials – supporting materials. But really all we’re doing is behaving to type, in the sense of carving out public space for complex issues to be understood better and debated better. It’s something we’ve done from birth, if you like, at The Open University. So our natural partners, our central partners in terms of media, are certainly the BBC and we’re very confident that we’ll be working with them. We don’t know precisely how, but there’s a lot of people interested at their end. We are also open to working with other partners, institutional partners, and I – just from the earliest conversations I’ve had with international bodies, research bodies and some other relevant players – Martin Reynolds And any government bodies? Joe Smith The government aren’t just key stakeholders. They’re central to anything that happens next on environmental change, so I’ll certainly be knocking at their door and I’ll want them to play. I think they’re going to be very supportive of this project. One of the things that I think it helps to build is political space around the issue of climate change. It makes a bit more room for the idea that this is a problem that will take some time, some patience and a bit of, if you like, generosity of spirit towards our leaders, our political elected leaders. And for that reason, I think they will want to back us in different ways. Of course, one of the stories I’d like to follow is the stories of civil servants and ministers, you know. I’d like them to be posting on the site and make a bit of space for consideration of the challenges they’re dealing with. Martin Reynolds And presumably broadening that out to an international scale – the kind of conferencing that’s going on around climate change in particular, but also related issues to do with environment. Joe Smith Oh yes. And, I mean, realistically I recognise that you’re not going to have huge numbers of civil servants and politicians taking time out to effectively blog for us across a decade. But what I think we can do is get, if you like, a representative sample of the story, so we’ll seek to have a mix of developed world and Southern voices, a mix of different interests represented in our, if you like, diary exercise across the decade. Yeah – I’m going to be looking for that. Martin Reynolds OK, now moving on from the ‘who’, let’s step back a bit and have a look at the wider rationale for the initiative. Could you say something more about why the creative climate initiative is important? What is it challenging and why? Joe Smith I think that the public conversation around climate change has become stalled. We’ve developed the idea, somehow, that this is an expert conversation that happens far, far away – that we’ll get a report about the science and a report about the policy and we’ll be more or less told how to respond. Actually, we know that we’ve run out of road with that kind of approach to the issue, and that this question of how we respond to climate change is going to have to seep into every corner of society. Everyone’s going to have to, at one level or another, be either accepting of policies that come their way or be a part of building alternatives, whether in their working life or personally, or indeed just simply in the kinds of permission they give to politicians when they vote. So I wanted to develop a project that would help – that would help to build the political space around climate change and would allow us to see our response not as, you know, flicking a switch but rather engaging in a collective project over time that would require a whole range of voices, a whole range of talents, in response. Martin Reynolds Now that prompts me to think about the current discourse around climate change, which has been very much centred on mitigation – how to cut our carbon emissions – whereas, of course, there is increasing reference given to adaptation. But am I right in thinking that creative climate is actually more about adaptation but on a more conversational mode? Joe Smith Absolutely, and I think that we need to knit those two together. I mean, there’s no doubt, of course we have to reduce our CO2 emissions. Mitigation is essential. But it’s, I think, interesting how little we’ve addressed adaptation. Adaptation is a much bigger issue for particularly the poorest parts of the world; places that are already very vulnerable to economic or social change now have another problem on the list. So you’re right to sense that creative climate has behind it a desire to kind of even the scales in favour of considering adaptation. But also to set a tone around that that’s a tone of opportunity – that we’ve got an opportunity in the next ten years to fix a whole lot of problems by addressing climate change. Those include the quality of our cities, whether we’re in Dakar or London. To address the perilous nature of our energy systems. To address the simple fact that massive increases in our material standard of living have not resulted in increases in our measurable quality of life, in our happiness, in our – a whole range of indices around how we feel. So I think addressing climate change in a creative way, in a creative frame, is a great way of approaching a whole set of other challenges we have at the moment. But not representing it as a sort of fait accompli – something we simply have to sign up to, as if then everything else will follow. It’s a conversation. It’s a whole set of practices we have to work through. Addressing climate change is going to require a great deal of creativity; and actually reminding ourselves that it’s creativity we need, more than giving things up, I think is really, really liberating. Martin Reynolds Yes, but adaptation normally implies a unilateral action. Creative climate appears to imply something different, more dynamic. Joe Smith Look, you’re right – you know, one of the things that I think that you and I share, and a number of our other Open University colleagues share, is a sense of excitement at the fact that we’re just entering a phase where we’re beginning to think about ourselves differently. By that I mean we’re in a phase where our whole intellectual frame of where humans sit in the world is shifting. And, you know, a phrase I’ve used before is, you know, in a sense climate change finishes Darwin’s sentence. It means that we have to accept the fact that we’re animal, that we’re of the natural world and in the natural world. We can’t pretend somehow that we live in a kind of discreet little machine-age bubble separate from natural forces. Martin Reynolds And it brings me back to the question about stakeholding and stakeholders, because there is an issue of how do we actually recognise non-human nature, the stuff that’s out there that can’t sit around a table like we are doing now and have a discussion about these things. What is it that has to change in order to provide that stakeholding for this incredibly important aspect of our natural world? Joe Smith Well, I think, I know you and your colleagues in Maths, Computing and Technology have been doing work recently that tries to reveal the reality, the presence of the non-human natural world in everyday practices and processes, and that’s one creative way of doing it. It’s an important way of doing it. But there are lots of other ways – you know, we have to work with proxies. We’re pretty used to the idea that scientists generate proxies for the natural world in the generation of data and the reporting of results, and that’s important too, but I’m really interested at the moment in how kind of other sorts of cultural work, particularly by artists, musicians, film makers, photographers, can help to just begin to melt that boundary between the sense of there being a cultural world and a natural world. And certainly one of the places on the creative climate website that I personally anticipate visiting regularly is going to be tracking the new creative work that people are doing in the arts in response to environmental change. I think that’s going to be really rich. It isn’t, if you like, the natural world speaking with its own voice all the time, although there are some interesting things happening in sound art that I think will give us some surprises. Martin Reynolds I appreciate very much the issue about you wanting the artists’ input, but there is a kind of a danger, isn’t there, of alienating the scientists. And it seems to me that if we’re going to have conversational space provided here, somehow we have to try and get the scientists to think in more artistic terms as well as vice versa. So are there opportunities, do you think, of actually having the science and the arts engaging with each other? Is that something which you foresee? Joe Smith Someone said that you don’t make interdisciplinary people. You find them. Some people are open to the idea of a conversation with people coming from different disciplines and backgrounds and with different kinds of creativity to hand, and some people aren’t. And I think we’re going to be looking for those people that are open to that. The Open University itself is full of people who are very open to interdisciplinary conversations, very open to breaking down the borders between arts and sciences. Only in the last week, I’ve got a great example – I won’t start on it now, but a great example that I’d love to look at putting up very early on in the creation of the website – between an artist and a scientist about common threads in their work. Martin Reynolds OK, Joe, that sounds like a good point to stop and a good prompt for us to keep a check on the ongoing conversation. Joe Smith, many thanks for your time. Joe Smith Thanks very much. Cheers Martin The advantage of using ‘conversation’ as a metaphor towards appreciating environmental responsibility lies with its sense of vibrancy, flux and continual change – ‘All conversation, then, is inventive, continually escaping its previous bounds’ (Talbott, 2004, p. 43). Conversation does not stand still. Similarly, the values attributed to nature – whether intrinsic or instrumental – are subject to change along with the flow of cultural change that shapes those values. Ray Ison also uses the conversation metaphor (2002, p. 246): As a species conversation is our unique selling point! We engage in conversation and in the process we bring forth ourselves and our world … To converse is to turn together, to dance, and thus an ecological conversation is a tango of responsibility. A conversation is inventive, unpredictable and is always particularizing to place and people … Engaging with this metaphor is not to turn away from doing science or ecology, or any other practice.
Ison considers the practices associated with environmental responsibility – whether science, policy design or everyday practices such as shopping – to be actual engagements with responding to nature. He defines ‘response-ability’ as the capacity to engage in responding (p. 237): Early 21st century life has evolved many ways to undermine ‘response-ability’ – one can see it in highly prescribed curricula, in imposed targets from policy makers, in performance measures etc. It is also undermined when the outcomes of practices such as science are used to claim that ‘I am right and you are wrong’.
Response-ability might also be undermined when science (natural or social), or any other formalised professional practice, makes a definitive claim on what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. Moral judgements on good and bad, and right and wrong, are conditioned by particular circumstances at the time. Such constructs might be further reinforced by some fixed notions of value and obligation relating to an intuitive sense of care, or measure of well-intentioned guidance, constructed at a particular time and in a particular circumstance. The two moral dilemmas associated with doing what’s good (not harmful) and doing what’s right (not wrong) relate to the ethical traditions of consequentialism and deontology. Response-abilities might be interpreted on these two fronts: first, a consequentialist concern about being responsive to the potential harm done to the natural environment; and second, a deontological concern about being responsive to the potential wrongdoing of human activity, either individually or collectively. Both Ison and Talbott suggest that environmental responsibility involves the need to keep a conversation ongoing with nature without falling into the trap of generating fixed, intransigent values and perspectives. Values and perspectives need continual revision, depending on the circumstances and any changes in the situation. I have translated Talbott’s description of two types of ecological conversation in terms of informal and formal . Environmental responsibility can be thought of in terms of an informal dimension of obligations and entitlements alongside a complementary, though more formalised, dimension of codified rights and duties . To some extent these expressions of informal and formal complement each other in a similar way to the concepts of caring for an environment and being accountable for harm and wrong done to the environment. Caring for an environment usually involves recognising the obligations associated with addressing the entitlements of non-human entities. Ensuring accountability for harm or wrong, on the other hand, tends to be more formalised and is associated with duties and rights. Figure 8 attempts to capture the notion of environmental responsibility in terms of a conversation involving rights, duties, obligations and entitlements. This representation uses the distinction between ‘nature’ as a codified construction and Nature as an extra-discursive reality. Expressing responsibility in this way may allow an appreciation of the idea of continual flux and change.Figure 8 Environmental responsibility as conversation The Nature that we converse with includes the whole complex world of which our codified notions of ‘nature’ are an integral part. The obligations and duties that we have are not just a response to present generations of human and non-human nature, but future generations as well. Similarly, our entitlements in relation to Nature, informed by rights, are a response to both human and non-human nature. 2.4 Summarising conversation as what matters Brian Wynne suggests that fundamental dichotomies associated with environmental matters underpin modern society – society versus nature, the social versus the natural, social knowledge versus natural knowledge, expert knowledge versus lay knowledge (1996, p. 45). The metaphor of conversation helps to move us beyond these dichotomous constructs and allows us to focus more on the integral relationships enmeshed in nature matters, relationships that I would argue are central to environmental responsibility. The terms ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ are conceptual constructs that provide important language tools for mediating a conversation. They are concepts that are sometimes used interchangeably. Often they can be used to reinforce a sense of detachment – and in that sense, nature and environment can be regarded as that which is not human – but they might each also be used to express more integral relationships. Whatever the construct used, it is sometimes helpful to appreciate the existence of an extra-discursive reality – what Talbott calls the Other and what Soper calls Nature. As in human conversation, acknowledging the existence of this Other provides grounds for respect and the possibilities of meaningful engagement. The ideas put forward by Cooper, of The Environment as a globalised arena and ‘environment’ as a more localised arena of significance, are different from the extra-discursive realm of Nature suggested by Soper. The Environment and ‘environment’ are conceptual constructs representing an abstraction of Nature. Again, they are language tools to help with the conversation rather than actual entities. These language tools can help us appreciate more the three views of environment (externality, managerial and integral). Two views – externality and managerial – correspond to Talbott’s descriptions of a radical preservationist viewpoint and a more scientific, resource-based viewpoint respectively. The third, integral view of nature constitutes a focal point for environmental responsibility and is one that might be expressed in terms of forging an ecological conversation. Using an integral view helps in understanding responsibility. It involves perceiving environment in terms of both the ‘natural’ and the ‘human’ worlds, deeply interlocked. Though interlocked, the two worlds can be helpfully viewed through the lens of (i) caring for and (ii) ensuring accountability for harm and wrongdoing respectively. These two senses of environmental responsibility appear also to have resonance amongst the wider public. For example, van den Born (2008) identifies two dominant images of nature amongst the representative group of lay people in the Netherlands: ‘(1) that humans are part of nature, but (2) that they are responsible for nature as well … [R]esponsibility means to give space to flourish and respect nature’s autonomy. Humans feel that natural beings are dependent on them, and therefore humans are responsible for their well-being’ (pp. 83 and 104). If conversation is the focal point of ‘what matters’ in environmental responsibility, in what sense might we appreciate matters of responsibility as an ongoing conversation in both dimensions? Another OpenLearn unit examines the two features of environmental responsibility as developmental attributes: firstly, developing care – that is, examining what matters from a caring perspective – and secondly, developing accountability – examining what matters from an accountability perspective. Both might be considered as expressions of an ongoing ecological conversation. Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to studying Environment & Development. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner. Keep on learning Study another free course There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you to choose from on a range of subjects. 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Allison, L. (1991) Ecology and Utility: The Philosophical Dilemmas of Planetary Management , Leicester, Leicester University Press. BBC (2008) ‘The wrong way to a warmer world?’ [online], BBC News, 3 April, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/analysis/7328634.stm (accessed 15/4/10). van den Born, R.J.G. (2008) ‘Rethinking nature: public visions in the Netherlands’, Environmental Values , vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 83–109. Collins, K. and Ison, R. (2008) pers. comm. Cooper, D.E. (1992) ‘The idea of environment’ in Cooper, D.E. and Palmer, J.A. (eds) The Environment in Question: Ethics and Global Issues , London, Routledge. Ison, R.L. (2002) ‘Systems practice and the design of learning systems: orchestrating an ecological conversation’, Proceedings of An Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Agriculture and Ecosystems Management, Ballina, Australia, 11–15 November. Nash, R.F. (1989) The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics , Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press. Peterson, A.L. (2001) Being Human: Ethics, Environment, and Our Place in the World , Los Angeles, CA, University of California Press. Reynolds, M., Blackmore, C. and Smith, M.J. (eds) (2009) Environmental Responsibility , London, Zed Books/Milton Keynes, The Open University. Sawyer, D. (2008) ‘Climate change, biofuels and eco-social impacts in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B , vol. 363, pp. 1747–52. Smith, M.J. (1998) Ecologism: Towards Ecological Citizenship , Minnesota, University of Minnesota Press/Buckingham, Open University Press. Soper, K. (1995) What is Nature? , Oxford, Blackwell. Talbott, S. (2004) In The Belly of the Beast: Technology, Nature, and the Human Prospect , Ghent, NY, The Nature Institute. Wynne, B. (1996) ‘May the sheep safely graze? A reflexive view of the expert–layknowledge divide’ in Lash, S., Szerszynski, B. and Wynne, B. (eds) Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology , London, Sage. Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions ), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following: Reading: Stephen Talbott, ‘Toward an ecological conversation’ in The Environmental Responsibility Reader , Martin Reynolds, Chris Blackmore and Mark, J. Smith (eds), published by Zed Books in association with The Open University (2009). Courtesy of © Stephen Talbott Figure 2 Michael Heath/Blond & Briggs Figure 3 © Richard Wear/Design Pics/Corbis Figure 4 Rohde, R.A. (2007) Global Warming Art Project Figure 6 (a) © Reuters; (b) © Rex Features; (c) Tatyana Makeyeva/Stringer Martin Reynolds 2009 This resource was created by the Open University and released in OpenLearn as part of the 'C-change in GEES' project exploring the open licensing of climate change and sustainability resources in the Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. The C-change in GEES project was funded by HEFCE as part of the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme and coordinated by the GEES Subject Centre. The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence ). See terms and conditions Don't miss out: If reading this text has inspired you to learn more, you may be interested in joining the millions of people who discover our free learning resources and qualifications by visiting The Open University - www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses
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