THE WORLD Environment Day (June 5) might arrive like an annual cliché, but it once again reminds us about the serious issues facing the environment and by consequence the entire planet. It is worth looking at where the root of the problem lies.

What does the environment comprise of? A simple definition would be — everything. Everything around us. Everything on this planet — living, non-living, plant, animal, human — together comprises our environment. But this is still an incomplete definition, for the environment is not merely a collection of living and non-living things. There are intricate linkages between these various elements. There are complex processes of exchange of material, energy, information. There are conversions and transformation from one element to another.

Living beings absorb energy and material from the environment and convert these into living matter. They die and their bodies decompose back to the original matter. Water evaporates and becomes clouds, and then precipitates back in the form of water or snow. It is these linkages and exchanges that define the essence of ecology. Over millions of years, these linkages and exchanges have stabilised into a dynamic equilibrium.

Like any other equilibrium system, the environment too has a robustness of its own. In the face of small perturbances, it has a tendency to revert back and maintain its basic balance. Like any other system it has limits to the amount of disturbance it can take beyond which it is unable to regain the balance.

For example, when the sewage from our small villages was being discharged into a river, it would dilute and wash away the sewage and the river would soon revert to the normal state. When the villages became cities, and the discharges into the river started containing toxic pollutants from industry, and when the water extraction upstream reduced the river flows, the river was no longer able to rejuvenate, and was reduced to a sewer line. This phenomenon is now seen in the case of practically every river in the country.

But why should we be concerned about the loss of balance? For the simple reason that this loss of balance can also lead to loss of productivity, and can also have a grave backlash that can threaten our crucial life-support systems. Our very existence depends on the environment. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the water, the minerals and construction material we use — everything comes from nature. Hence, any impact on the health of the environment has to be of great concern for us.

This cannot mean that we do not intervene or interact with the environment. Any and every human action interferes with and has an impact on the environment. When we breathe, we increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When we walk, we step on grass, on small insects. Indeed, the largest single intervention in the environment was probably the practice of settled agriculture — the beginning of human ‘civilisation’. Vast areas of forests were cut and natural bio-regimes were destroyed to set up farms.

In everything we do, we take from the environment. It has always been so, for human beings are not separate. Interaction with it is the basis of our survival.

What has become the cause for concern is that the range, scale and magnitude of human interference has become so great that it is destroying, often in an irreversible manner, the balance and the processes that keep the environment alive and productive. Human intervention is greatly exceeding the environment’s capacity to maintain balance.

The question is, can we create a balance, or rather, recreate a balance, between the needs of our survival, our prosperity, and those of maintaining the environment? A negative answer spells doom for the environment, and for us.

One important way in which we can reduce the harm is by reducing our interference in it — by reducing what we withdraw from it. This means reducing our insatiable consumption patterns.

An immediate retort to this is that ‘eco-terrorists’ want us to go back to the stone ages. I do not think any environmentalist is saying this. What is being voiced is a concern that current consumption levels of withdrawal are not sustainable. But what constitutes sustainable consumption? Who would decide what levels of consumption are okay?

There are no simple answers to this. One thing is clear — there are sections of population on this globe whose levels of consumption are greatly beyond the planet’s capacity to sustain. Reference here is to the western world. Besides, there are vast populations whose survival needs are not being met.

Some years ago I read a book called Two Minutes a Day for a Greener Planet. The book describes how as individuals, we can, by adopting some very simple practices, contribute in making the environment better. The book, written by a Canadian, Marjorie Lamb, was aimed at the western audience.

The book has several interesting suggestions: take your own shopping bag to the market, use a rag instead of a paper towel to wipe things, mail back wasteful packaging to the manufacturers and tell them you do not need so much packaging, use the backside of discarded photocopies and so on. The key message is to cut unnecessary consumption, like water, paper etc, that puts a burden on the environment. The western society is a highly consumerist society, with enormous consumption of all resources. To make these resources available, they need to dig up mines, dam rivers, cut trees, build factories which then result in massive pollution — all of which damages the environment. The lesser we consume, the lesser will the environment be burdened.

This book is one of those which shows that it is possible to reduce consumption without any impact on our lifestyle. Yet, the levels of consumption in the West are in order of magnitude higher than those in much of the rest of the world. Even back of the envelope calculations show that it would not be possible for all the global population to consume at the same rate. Hence, the need is to move towards consuming less. But what is happening is exactly the reverse.

Indeed, even about 10 years ago, most of the suggestions in the book would have been of no use for the majority of the Indian people. Yet, in 10 years we have ‘progressed’ so much that the book is greatly relevant to India. A significant section of India’s population now consumes along the lines of the western countries. It is a fact that should worry all of us, as should the excessive consumption anywhere in the world.

To consume less does not mean to have sub-standard lives. Many scientists and environmentalists have shown that increasing the efficiency of our resource use, and by cutting down our unnecessary consumption, we can ensure that the sustainable levels of production can be maintained and these can lead to sustainable prosperity for all. And still, the bottom line remains — you can only take so much from the environment and no more.

How much this should be, and how much consumption is enough, cannot be decided by any one person. It has to emerge out of a larger and informed debate. This debate can only be driven by a sensitivity and concern for the common global good. At the same time, it must be understood that having a small elite with a huge consumption and a large mass with abysmally low consumption to make a manageable average cannot work. It is neither just nor socially sustainable.

Naturally, the lead in managing consumption must be taken by those who are consuming the most — and must start by looking at their own abnormally high levels of consumption. Anything else will be construed as a conspiracy of the haves against the have-nots.