It is heartening to read all the comments and reactions. First, may I suggest that folks interested in this idea read the whole book "The Barbaric Heart: Faith, Money, and the Crisis of Nature" By Curtis White, Polipoint Press, 2009. The article I circulated is really a very brief summary of arguments in the book.
Among many other nuggets of wisdom in the Article, here are two direct quotes that I found wisdom in.
1. "The crisis of a degraded natural world is a part of the larger problem of the crisis of thought, the crisis of faith, and the crisis of the relation of human beings to Being (or God, if you prefer)." This insight to me has tremendous implications for how we study environmental crises, and the solutions/policies we propose for it. The crisis is not just in the environment outside (land, water, air) but rather that is as an aspect of the crisis of thought and faith inside us. If we buy this then we need to refocus our approaches to understanding environmental crises.
2. "But thoughtfulness's primary attribute is not its ability to provide a superior Truth or an irrefutable logic. Thoughtfulness's primary attribute is aesthetic. That is, what thoughtfulness proposes as an alternative to the self-serving violence of the Barbaric, is beauty. Don't think profit, it argues, think beauty." This insight asks us to take aesthetic inquiry seriously - something that most organizational scholars dont. We are content in our "scientific" pursuit of truth, as if that is all there is. If we accept this insight, then we as scholars should be seeking aesthetic beauty in addition to (and hopefully integrated with) scientific truth.
Jointly these ideas open up the possibility "that true resolution of our climate change crisis is likely to come from an unexpected quarter: the arts, religion, and the realm of the moral imagination more generally." (another quote from the book).
Related Point:
Some coments raised the point about human consumption levels compared to other species. This seems an important question to me, since human consumption is driving many species into extinction. Some months ago on this list I had sent out a calculation about energy consumption. Here it is again.
Most species consume the energy required to biologically survive, reproduce, and thrive in their respective environments. We humans are special, because we have learned to harness and use more energy than biologically needed. Biological needs is one useful way of assessing energy needs. So I asked some energy experts to give me a calculations of how much energy humans need, versus how much energy they consume.
Biological Energy Needed = 2200 cal/day x 365 days = 803Kcal = 933kWh (1kWh = 860 Kcal)
In Canada avg energy use per capita = 11,055.0 W/yr (x8.766 =96,844 kWh).
So an average Canadian consumes nearly 100,000 X bioenergy needed.
I find this an amazing statistic, and am hoping that it is incorrect, an error in calculation! Before asking anyone to reduce consuming, we need to understand what is the appropriate level of per capita consumption if we are to feed and clothe 9.2 billion people on this planet by 2040. Should we (and corporations) be thinking about reducing our consumption (in addition to increasing productivity of materials), and perhaps shrinking our global economy in orderly ways, instead of what we are currently preoccupied with - inceasing consumption and growing the global economy - a habit of the barbaric heart.
With Best Regards,
paul S.
Paul Shrivastava, Ph. D.
David O'Brien Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, and
Director, David O'Brien Center for Sustainable Enterprise
John Molson School of Business
Concordia University
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Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8
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