Conditions for Sustainable Environmental Protection

Sandstorms and pest infestations continue, turning Earth into a wasteland where cultivating plants is impossible. On land where even wheat and corn no longer grow, people on Earth face starvation, and the protagonist sets out into space to save humanity from a food crisis. This is the future of humankind depicted in the 2014 film *Interstellar*.

The films *Snowpiercer* and *Mad Max* likewise portray an Earth devastated by climate change, with shortages of food and fuel. In these movies, various options are presented for preventing humanity’s extinction. As in *WALL-E*, people might leave behind an Earth where plants can no longer take root and which has become one giant garbage dump, and search for a new planet. Or, as in *What Happened to Monday*, population growth might be curbed through a one-child policy.

These films are fictional stories born of imagination, but they reflect quite well the fears humanity harbors about the Earth’s environment and the future. Will humanity really meet its end because of population growth and climate change?

Nothing Is Sacred

Humanity has long lived with a fear of nature. Our ancestors, lacking a scientific understanding of natural phenomena such as droughts, earthquakes, and lightning, vaguely feared and worshipped nature. They believed that rainfall was the will of heaven. If rain did not fall or if natural disasters occurred, they thought it was because the king or ruler lacked virtue, and kings were expected to pray to heaven for rain.

One of the king’s main roles was to offer rites to heaven. In the title Dangun Wanggeom, *Dangun* refers to a religious ruler who performs rites for heaven, while *Wanggeom* means a political leader. This ritual tradition continued into the Joseon Dynasty. Records show that King Sejong, blaming his own lack of virtue for a drought that lasted half a year, prayed to heaven for blessed rain. When rain fell three days later, the people praised him as a wise and virtuous king.

Fear and anxiety about the environment are still very much with us today. Thanks to advances in science and technology, humanity no longer fears droughts and lightning in the same way. Yet negative predictions that the Earth’s environment will continue to worsen, along with vague fears about a future that has not yet arrived, still remain. Environmental absolutists seeking to exploit this politically are spreading fear-based scenarios about the future.

Environmentalists predict that environmental pollution will destroy ecosystems, deplete resources, and bring about humanity’s demise. In 2006, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned in *An Inconvenient Truth* that within 20 years, global warming would melt glaciers and permanent snowfields, submerging major cities such as Shanghai, cities in India, and New York, while the Netherlands would disappear from the map. Earlier, in 1972, the Club of Rome’s report *The Limits to Growth* predicted that humanity would face its limits within 100 years due to a population explosion and resource depletion.

Humanity Is Nature’s Steward

In these doomsday scenarios, the culprit is human beings themselves. The population, which stood at only 1 billion during the Industrial Revolution, has ballooned to 7.6 billion, and this expanded population, it is argued, is depleting underground resources such as oil while also increasing carbon dioxide emissions through factories and automobiles, thereby destroying the environment. But is humanity really a force that pollutes and destroys the environment?

In 19th-century New York, many believed the city would soon perish under piles of horse manure. At the time, horses and carriages were the main means of transportation, and since each horse produced more than 10 kilograms of manure a day, New York’s streets overflowed with it. The whole city reeked, and the gases from the manure polluted the air. The horse manure problem became so serious that an international conference was reportedly convened, yet no clear solution could be found. Contrary to everyone’s fears, the apocalypse never came. The automobile, invented by humanity, neatly solved the environmental pollution problem caused by horse manure.

Malthus’s prediction that population growth would bring about Earth’s end also proved false. Comparing the rate of food production with the rate of population growth, Malthus concluded that humanity would soon face a food crisis. Since land was limited, he believed that simply adding more labor could not increase food production indefinitely. But contrary to his conjecture, a larger population led to more innovation, advanced agricultural technology, and overcame food shortages. In this way, humanity has established itself not as a force that pollutes the environment, but as one that uses the environment and creates greater value from it.

Many other bleak forecasts about humanity’s future have likewise been shown to lack scientific grounding. More than 40 years ago, the Club of Rome warned of resource depletion, yet we still have not heard that oil has run out. On the contrary, the emergence of shale gas has helped drive oil prices downward. Nor has any evidence been found that humanity will go extinct for lack of food. Today, the global poverty rate is the lowest in human history. And unlike Al Gore’s warning, we have not seen news that the Netherlands has vanished from the map or turned into an island nation.

In other words, humanity has not been destroying the environment; it has been managing it to make life better and creating value within it. Rather than leaving nature untouched, humans have developed it into a state more favorable to human life. Iron ore in its natural state is processed into pig iron and steel; pig iron is made into steel plates or nails; steel is used to build cars and ships. By utilizing the natural resource of iron ore, humanity created new value. As a result, we are living in a more prosperous and cleaner environment than at any other time in Earth’s history.

We Must Guard Against Environmental Absolutism That Sanctifies Nature

Environmental absolutists argue that nature should not be polluted and should instead be left untouched and revered. There can be no disagreement that the Earth’s environmental resources, on which we live, should be conserved and protected. However, we should reject the absolutist attitude that treats the environment as a sacred and inviolable realm, denying the legitimacy of human action that makes use of it and creates value within it.

Actively using and developing nature is not unrelated to environmental protection. In 2003, Venerable Jiyul and environmental groups opposed KTX tunnel construction, claiming it would destroy wetlands and wipe out the habitat of salamanders. At the time, experts presented scientific evidence that the salamander habitat would not be destroyed, but construction was halted several times in the name of environmental protection. Contrary to Venerable Jiyul’s concerns, after the tunnel opened in 2010, the salamander population actually increased, and the number of species inhabiting the wetlands also grew. This kind of environmental absolutist political offensive imposed the social cost of delaying the opening of KTX by as much as six months.

If we truly want to protect the environment, it is more effective to advocate investment in the future and economic development. If humanity’s quality of life and the Earth’s environment are better today than in the past, that is not thanks to environmentalists who worried about the environment and warned of resource depletion. It is thanks to humanity’s efforts to develop the economy, solve problems, and advance science. It was not Malthus, who predicted doomsday, that solved food shortages, but the achievements of science and technology that developed better seeds and invented agricultural machinery. Environmental problems such as climate change and resource depletion can likewise be solved through science and technology.

Developing the economy is also a good way to protect the environment. The more advanced a society is economically, the higher its standards regarding the environment. The River Thames, once known during the industrial era as the river of death, has now been transformed into a beautiful river traversed by cruise boats and inhabited by fish. Not only infectious diseases but also exhaust fumes and smog have disappeared. The answer is clear if one simply compares how clean India’s Ganges is with Germany’s Rhine.

Good Intentions Alone Cannot Protect the Environment

Environmental protection policies also require a realistic approach. Because the environment is treated as a sacred and inviolable realm, policies for environmental protection are often treated as sacred as well. Rather than considering the outcomes of implementing such policies or the social harm they may cause, what is emphasized is the intention of “protecting the environment.” Such policies often bring inconvenience, and people feel proud that they have protected the environment by tolerating that inconvenience. Yet no one pays attention to whether these policies have actually protected the environment effectively.

Good intentions do not guarantee results that protect the environment. A representative example is the misunderstanding surrounding disposable products. The use of disposable items such as plastic is often treated as inherently wrong on the grounds that it creates unnecessary waste. In 2019, the Ministry of Environment introduced a policy banning disposable cups inside coffee shops and fast-food restaurants. In place of single-use plastic cups, customers were required to use mugs.

A policy banning disposable cups not only causes inconvenience for consumers but also threatens hygiene. Almost everyone has had the experience of finding lipstick marks on a cup that was not properly washed. Some people even started drinking coffee through straws because of their discomfort with cups used by others. If they have to leave the store midway, they must go through the waste and trouble of switching to a disposable cup. Carrying a personal tumbler at all times is cumbersome as well.

Store operators face inconvenience too. They must spend money to store and wash reusable mugs. They may need to hire part-time workers or purchase dishwashers, and those costs may be reflected in coffee prices. In other words, using mugs instead of disposable cups requires considerable time and expense.

Unfortunately, even after bearing this inconvenience, there is no evidence anywhere that this protects the environment more than using disposable cups. Washing reusable cups consumes resources such as water and detergent. Detergent in particular pollutes rivers and seas. If dishwashers or dryers are used, electricity is required, and the process of producing that energy is not unrelated to environmental pollution. And yet everyone believes that using reusable cups is environmentally friendly.

The plastic waste floating in the oceans is generated not mainly by advanced countries where takeout coffee is common, but by countries such as India and China, where awareness of environmental protection is lower and economic development has been slower. If those countries are supported by science, technology, and economic growth, the plastic waste problem can naturally be resolved as well.

We Need an Environmental Movement That Improves Quality of Life

In Victor Hugo’s novel *Les Misérables*, there is a scene in which the protagonist Jean Valjean escapes through the sewers of Paris. In the process, Jean Valjean lavishly praises the Paris sewer system. Hugo describes in great detail the history of the Paris sewers and the technology associated with them. His writing is full of French pride in the sewer system.

“Imagine Paris with its lid removed. The underground network of sewers, seen from above, would form a kind of enormous branch attached to the Seine across both banks of the river.... Each time a new street is opened in the city, a new branch is added to the sewer.”

In medieval France, there were no separate toilets. Paris was a place filled with foul odors. There was no sewer system, and garbage was not collected separately, so food waste and human excrement were all mixed together. The city was haunted by infectious diseases such as cholera and plague, as well as parasites. People built sidewalks to protect pedestrians from the filth in the streets, and they wore high heels. They also used perfume to mask the stench. And eventually they built a sewage treatment system to solve the problems of filth and foul odors. If the French had instead tried to effectively reduce waste by eating less and going to the bathroom less often, they would never have created the sewage treatment system we have today.

In whatever way humans live, there will inevitably be factors that pollute the environment. But forcing inconvenience and banning convenience in the name of environmental protection is not effective and produces only side effects. That is because it runs counter to the course of human development, which has evolved through science and technology in ways that reduce the time and energy people must expend. If environmental protection policies are to actually protect the environment and remain sustainable, they must improve human life by making it more convenient and more valuable than before.

Eun-kyung Kwak, Director of the Corporate Culture Office, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 지속가능한 환경보호의 조건

Author: Eun-kyung Kwak

Date: 2020-02-27

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&pn=22&idx=22461