Has the world gone mad on green consciousness?

There is an old saying - ‘too much of anything is not good’. Too much of sunshine dries the crops and too much of rain drowns it. We certainly acknowledge the existence of many similar symbolic examples like these which are explicitly relevant to many other aspects of our daily lives. In our daily affairs, one of such aspects has certainly drawn huge attention – ‘green consciousness’, which has become vogue for governments, businesses, civic societies and by and large normal public for last more than three decades. Is it fair to say ‘fashionable’ or ‘necessity’ the appropriate word to describe the green consciousness? There is often a dichotomy between what is popular at a particular time and something that you need in order to fulfil one’s basic life requirements. In due course, we will pick up this argument as we approach in this article.

The origin of green consciousness is not new. It grew during the early stages of Industrial revolution when 'smoking stacks' were considered as the pride and symbol of industrial activity, success and affluence. From the chemical industries, emissions of highly repulsive waste gases especially hydrochloric acid and hydrogen sulphide from the Leblanc soda process were so high that authorities in England had to introduce environmental legislation Alcali Act in 1864. Smoke and ash abatement in Great Britain was considered to be a health agency responsibility and was so confirmed by the first Public health Act of 1848 and the later ones of 1866 and 1875 (Stern, 1984).

During the last thirty years, green consciousness has grown even stronger than ever. Society is now more conscious of pollution prevention, resource conservation and recycling, reduced new extraction of fossil and raw materials, more use of biomass materials, using clean sources of energy and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Not just widespread green consciousness among public but the green movement and green political ideology also played a very important role. But, what is the real driving force behind this? It may be quite opposite for many people, who would rather call it 'green hysteria' or 'scaremongering'.

Society always reacted towards the natural and anthropogenic disasters once it destroyed people's livelihood, immediate environment and killed many people on the way. Aftermath of an incident associated with BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 (by far it has been the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of petroleum industry) has showed how public outcry and political willingness can change the future environmental, health and safety policies and strategies on how petroleum industries should behave and take the responsibilities for their actions. Increasing customer expectation, supply chain pressure, pressure from the local community, ethical investment and plethora of environmental legislation will continue to underpin the green success and tackle environmental degradation.

Let us forget the impacts of global warming and climate change for a moment. Reducing the needs for new resources and make greater use of recovered resources ought to be the inherent culture, otherwise the risks of resource scarcity that may stall industrial progress to manufacture more goods and services that we all depend on. In this regard, green consciousness marches steadily uphill which is undoubtedly welcome for the future survival of the planet and the people. But any false or overstated green claims e.g. false Green PR or false Green Marketing will be not only damaging for the reputation of businesses, but also the gravity of the real cause for green agenda will probably be lost.

On the dichotomy of ‘fashionable’ and ‘necessity’ arguments in green consciousness where I believe that the necessity cannot be fashionable or fashionable cannot be necessity. In general, as a global citizen we all are entitled to be obligation-conscious of environmental conservation. Overwhelming evidences exist in environmental degradation driven by man-made pollution, consequently many experts are repeatedly calling and re-emphasising the importance to protect and improve the environment where ensuring both human beings and the environment can coexist. Environmental degradation is one of the ten threats to humanity identified by the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations in 2004. Therefore, it is an urgent issue where something that we all need to fulfil for our planet’s basic life requirements.

Coming back to the maxim - ‘too much of anything is not good’! Too much emphasis is given on green consciousness without pointing out the measurable benefits, which is counterproductive and that is why it is not surprising when we see timid and inadequate public reaction towards green agenda. Sceptics have always capitalised on the opportunity by saying - ' the green agenda is about getting rid of as many humans as possible', 'green agenda has parallels with excesses of communism', 'green house effects have been falsified', we didn't have global warming during the Industrial Revolution', 'Al Gore's hockey stick is broken', 'record snowfall disproves global warming', 'mercury thermometers cannot measure within tenths of a degree' and the comments go on.

People from all strata of the society generally accept that mankind are to be blamed for exhausting many of planet’s precious resources for growth and development. We always read and hear the bad news. Particularly in the news media, it barely points out the benefits of humanity’s growth and development, for example availability and varieties of food, health, education, improvements to living standards and comfort, security, recreation and human mobility as a whole. Tremendous progresses have been made on biodiversity and environmental areas such as pollution prevention, resource recovery, recycling, finding alternative materials to avoid the exhaustion of raw materials, advancement in green technology, and the major technological changes in agriculture e.g. alternative farming methods, conservation on biodiversity and so on. Green consciousness is good and will be well accepted by the general public when they will see a balance in both sides of the debate – on one side ‘the causes of environmental degradation and destruction of the eco systems’, on the flip side ‘benefits of growth and development’ on society while maintaining the sustainability obligations.