Why Must We Talk about the Environment? A Summary of Nanshan Seminar

The first issue of Frontier this year carried "A Summary of the Nanshan Seminar" based on a conference on ecology and literature held on Hainan in October 1999, which reflected on developmentalism.

The global environment has been deteriorating for a long time; a shortage of fresh water, expanding desertification, increased concentration of "greenhouse" gases, the breakdown in the ozone layer, decreasing biodiversity, and so on not only endanger the survival of humanity, but also heighten economic, social, political, cultural, and ethnic conflicts on both local and global scales.

In a developing country like China, which has a relative scarcity of per capita resources (ranked lower than 160th in the world), the contradictions between resources and development and between the environment and economic growth have rapidly surfaced and intensified. In recent years the drying up of the Yellow River, the flooding of the Yangtze River, the "blackening" of the Hui River, rapid desertification in the northwest, air and water pollution in the east and south of China, and so on threaten the basic survival of many people; garbage control and food contamination in many cities is endangering the health and quality of life of many (especially wage laborers and the poor). On the whole, the shortage of fresh water, pollution of air and water, deterioration of the soil, decrease in arable land, loss of soil and water, and increase in acid rain have not yet been effectively controlled and addressed.

There is a widely held view that environmental pollution and ecological destruction are inevitable in the process of economic and social development but the problem will be solved as science and technology develop, and economic growth itself will generate investment in environmental and ecological restoration. The issue is this: in the past several decades, the world did not lack the technology needed for the basic and necessary protection of the environment, and the world did not lack the funds to solve such problems as water pollution and industrial air pollution, but this did not stop the spread of environmental pollution. This indicates that there are deeper social, political, and cultural causes behind the pollution. The environmental problem is absolutely not just a matter of science and technology.

The environmental problem is fundamentally related to how natural resources are owned, used, and distributed—processes that always occur within a certain social and ideological system. To engage, reflect, and critique the spheres and processes in which these take place should be the irrefutable responsibility of critical scholars in the humanities and social sciences, writers, artists, and public intellectuals.

The relationship between the environment and development is often constructed as an either/or dilemma: If we desire development, then the environment will have to be sacrificed. If we want to protect the environment, then development will have to be sacrificed and poverty will result. This developmentalist logic and discourse have been internalized as "common sense" or "common knowledge" by many, preventing any serious and meaningful discussion of the relationship between development and the environment.

The concern over the environment does not require us to establish a modern polytheism that worships and protects all living things (even viruses) and all that is natural (including floods). Nor does it negate the reasonableness of people pursuing an increase in material comfort. But shouldn't the meaning of comfort include a relative harmony between humans and nature and a relative balance between economic growth and the environment? Regardless of the fact that all civilizations have come into conflict with nature, this cannot justify merely sitting by and watching the environment deteriorate. To construct an either/or relationship between "development" and the "environment" often makes an excuse for predatory and destructive development...