More Green(grass), less Green(backs)

Anyone looking out upon the green hills and dusky red vistas of Middlebury College would be aware of the beauty of the world and the importance of keeping it that way — Republicans and conservatives included. Like most people at this school I grew up with the golden rule of Green living: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I still believe these to be goods, prefer to know where my food comes from (and what chemicals are on it) and would like to live in a place not covered, like Beijing, in the smog of industrialization.

However, real environmentalism cannot be restricted to wind farms and solar panels (much less to reusing, reducing and recycling) and it cannot be confined  to America, much less Middlebury College. There is no issue that shows the global nature of modern politics so much as the environmental movement because, by definition, it is a worldwide problem that cannot be contained within sovereign boundaries or fixed by the action of one government.

There is a commonly repeated saying that each one of our breaths contains a few molecules of the dying breath of Julius Caesar. Whether or not the stale breath of Caesar is a scientifically verifiable phenomenon, the underlying fact that air disperses around the world is true. In effect, this fact shows the problems of solving environmental issues within the bounds of a nation state. Environmentalism has to do not only with air but with water, soil and seeds — its issues are everywhere and affect everyone. Although a clean world may be in the interests of all, it is in no one’s interest to be the only one taking measures to preserve the natural environment. In a world where survival is inherently completive, where economics, security and power are all in some degree dependent upon outdoing one another, real environmental change demands enormous sacrifice.

Nation-states are always concerned, first and foremost, with their own interest. They protect their people, their borders and their own economies before being concerned with those of other countries. In order for governments of nation-states to protect their citizens, their sovereignty must be assured. This works in national security, foreign policy and trade relations but it cannot work with the environment.

To protect the environment of America, the U.S. government must be concerned with the environmental practices not just of its territory but of the rest of the world. Such concerns are direct threats to the sovereignty of all other nations. Additionally, every country is stuck in what political scientists might call the “prisoner’s dilemma.” Each country’s environment would be better off if everyone would abide by the same rules of green living. But as this comes at a major cost to industry, efficiency and the economy, each nation-state must weigh the pros and cons of an environmental protocol. Since no country can be assured that the others will side with the environment, they cannot do so in isolation for by cutting their industry so as not to pollute they would be at a disadvantage in competition with any country that refused to be environmentally friendly. The only way to break out from the prisoner’s dilemma is to have complete trust in the other parties — in international relations such trust is exemplified by international treaties and organizations.

International law is one of the most complicated and loose legal areas because there is no authority to which all parties look. This fact makes trust almost impossible to maintain so that national interest still rules and nation-states comply and refuse to comply as they see fit. Today we can see this behavior in organizations such as the United Nations. Like the League of Nations before it, the UN has showed itself to be far less useful than its creators had hoped. The interests of its members are so diverse (and often even in opposition to one another) that it is unable to come to real decisions in any reasonable amount of time or to take any real action.

An environmental treaty or organization would have the same problems. It would erode the sovereignty of any nation-state without making any real progress. It would become merely another stage upon which nation-states can posture for the TV cameras and recorders of the international press.

In the end the only way to have real environmental progress would be to abolish borders, nation-states, and sovereignty create a world-wise government. But no such government could exist and even if it could abolish national sovereignty it is still a ridiculous idea. The UN is corrupt. Its bureaucrats favor certain national interests over others. They tend to favor authoritarian governments over liberal democratic nations. Authoritarian governments in turn are notoriously indifferent to the environment.
The environment is important. Here at Middlebury College we have the luxury of living in a beautiful place, of eating organic food, of caring about recycling and of being general environmentally conscious. But we should be equally conscious that this is a luxury that not everyone enjoys here in America or in the rest of the world, and that it does come at a price. Discouraging development of industry in the United States comes at the price of asking some of our fellow citizens to live in poverty while increasing pollution world wide.