Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen – The Environmental Dimension of Love
- Hiking in the mountains of Norway
Anxiously concerned with the acute environmental crises facing a distracted world, Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen has dedicated her studies and early career to finding long-term solutions. Her investigations have taken her from native Sweden to tropical Costa Rica, from Kenya to Germany, and her conclusions? The foundation for solving the problems of massive soil depletion and erosion, species extinction, pollution and even climate change, she says, is found in ethical considerations of fairness and justice, and above all, in the spiritual quality of love.
Not that she looks down on science. Far from it: Sylvia has a degree in Environmental Science, a Masters in Biology. Her doctorate in Political Science and her Postdoc at Yale both looked at how society deals with specific environmental problems at different levels of governance, local, national, regional and international, and the role that knowledge, values, and institutions play in tackling them. While she believes that the guiding principles for finding solutions must be found in the spiritual realm, the search for applicable systems and processes must also be strongly rooted in science.
Sylvia is now working for a Finnish University researching the legitimacy and effectiveness of global environmental governance, comparing legally binding norms (treaties like the Kyoto protocol) and non-legal international norms. She is currently on ‘loan’ to Leiden University in the Netherlands, which as luck would have it, is where her husband, Onno Vinkhuyzen, is from. (They met at an EBBF conference!) She spends some of her free time being the general secretary of the International Environment Forum, a sister NGO to EBBF, Bahai-inspired, concerned with how spiritual and scientific approaches to environmental problems can mutually support each other, and contributing these insights to international discussions in this field. During the last couple of years she has given talks in different parts of the world on the spiritual dimensions of climate change. But when she can, she loves hiking in nature.
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EBBF: How did you become interested in the intersection of human values and the environment?
Sylvia: I grew up in Uppsala, Sweden, which is a very international city, and I had a very international upbringing (in practice, by being part of the Bahai community). I early on set on looking beyond Swedish borders, started studying environmental issues precisely in order to illustrate the need for global unity and global governance. The global environmental challenges like climate change illustrate in a simplistic physical way that there is only one Earth, and mankind its citizens. (Other issues highlight this as well— the financial crisis, poverty, etc.—any other social issue if analysed deeply looking for its root causes confirms how globally connected we are and how much need we have for international collaboration. But environmental issues are tangible and physical, and it is easier for people to accept these as global problems.) So I studied environmental science.
My purpose was always to focus on solutions to environmental problems, but the solutions can’t be found by studying the environment only, because it is people who have created the problem, and so you have to study people and societies and the values that shape them to identify how to solve the problems.
- Presenting at “The Planet in 2050”, which gathered some 50 scientists from around the world in Lund in October 2008
EBBF: Growth is central to our current way of thinking: if the economy doesn't grow, there is no job creation and people suffer (so the argument goes), and the other political party wins; if a business doesn't grow, the CEO gets axed. Growth creates jobs, wealth, and products for all. So what's the problem with growth?
Sylvia: It all depends on the kind of growth you talk about. The kind of growth this society is addicted to is material growth, and resource-based growth. It relies on ever-expanding material stuff, and that’s brought an ever expanding amount of pollution. That kind of growth does not work on a limited planet. We’ve basically reached the limits that this planet can carry. There are so many signs of environmental degradation. Climate change is of course the challenge that is most talked about, but there is also the decline of fisheries, the decline of fertile soil, the loss of biodiversity. There are two million contaminated sites in Europe alone; water resources are being depleted more rapidly than replenished, and 2.4 million die every year in the world from particle air pollution. This all shows that we are living beyond the physical limits of the planet.
But there are dimensions of growth that are limitless. We can think of an endless growth of intellectual capacity, of kindness, love, compassion—if, that is, those qualities are expressed not only in material senses. If I choose to express love in other ways than giving my husband a racing car, for example, maybe with a hug, a tree, or any other number of ways, then that love can be infinite, and can be expressed in many ways. But society only appreciates ‘love’ when it is expressed in materials tokens. One step is to move towards a service economy, but while one country may clean up its act as it moves in this direction, the polluting processes of production may just have been moved to another part of the world (for example, to China). So we have to decouple the whole economy more from physical resources.
There is a parallel to nature and organic growth. Organisms have a predestined size. An elephant becomes an elephant—it can be a bigger or smaller elephant, but it always reaches elephant size. Every species has a predetermined size, but once you have reached that size, it doesn’t mean that there is no change. There is a constant change of cells, a constant regeneration. Society likewise has to realize what is its normal, healthy size, and has to find a way to find its prosperity from qualitative growth. This implies constant regeneration and expansion of human capacity, in particular of the human capacity to love. In short, we have to find ways to decouple this constant change from impacting the ecosystem.
And the economic system that has been created and the calculations that it has been based on for centuries and decades has completely ignored that nature is limited and the resources we use have a price; they are scarce. Everything that is scarce has a price. In the beginning they didn’t seem to be scarce. Water seemed endless, air seemed endless, there was no cost to pollute, but we know better now. Greed and materialism and the ability to innovate have led us to hit the limits.
Of course, in some poor parts of the world there is underconsumption of material things. So we have to find ways for both types of consumption. Eliminate poverty and increase consumption on the one hand, and on the other to change the consumption patterns of the wealthy so that they don’t severely impact the ecosystem that we depend on.
We are definitely destined to grow forever in lots of ways, but we cannot indefinitely grow the volume of resources we use and the pollution we create. That’s it. We hit the roof, and it has to go down, way down.
With climate change, for example, some leaders are talking about an 80% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2050. Obama has promised that the US will do this. Other countries have promised other things. This is the magnitude of change we are talking about—and science says we MUST do this! And if poor countries are going to have to grow in order to meet the physical needs of their people, and as a consequence emit more CO2, then rich countries must really decrease their own emissions. Some countries like New Zealand, Costa Rica, and maybe Norway, are even talking about becoming carbon neutral.
This represents an enormous vision, it’s huge: that we should not emit things that hurt the earth we’re living on. It’s not impossible at all if we just set our minds on it. But we definitely have to get a different perspective on material based growth. This is particularly true for the rich countries, which have to make the largest changes the fastest, but in the future this will also need to be done in developing countries.
- The beginning of Sylvia's career as a researcher
EBBF: It also says something about how entrenched the vision of growth is when you see how hard it is to make the shift towards ‘not emitting things that hurt the earth’, the very place where we live! What is it that has led these countries to make the shift in this vision?
Sylvia: I think there are many arenas in which this shift is occurring. I was starting to glance through a UK report, where there is a lot of consultation on sustainable development. The report called this current period the ‘Age of Irresponsibility’, and talked about “redefining prosperity”. At the EU level they are talking about going ‘Beyond GDP’, and are looking at what is more valuable to measure than economic growth, so that politicians have better, more sustainable indicators, ones that better reflect what citizens want. For people don’t want GDP; they want wellbeing, peaceful societies. There are lots of things to improve, things that make it so that people, even in the richest countries in the world, are satisfied.
In Costa Rica’s case they have long-standing tradition of thinking globally, and have a lot of forests that will balance the transportation sector and other things. New Zealand and Norway also have a long tradition of being environmentally conscious. Norway is a sort of paradox because they make most of their money by selling oil. So it’s a bit of a morality paradox. I know, however, that in Norway there is broad public support to focus on environmental issues. And if politicians are going to be able to exercise moral leadership, they aren’t usually so courageous unless they have some sort of support from their voters. General support from the public certainly helps. This is why it matters what every individual, business, and social organization expresses.
I know for example there was quite a strong change in Australia in climate change policies after the last elections. The previous government didn’t do that much, but in the transition there has been a huge swing towards addressing climate change. There is also a voice coming from the private sector expressing an interest in the carbon market. It is exciting to see businesses taking leadership in this arena, and arguing for more government action. They are saying that there will have to be tough action on climate change in the future, so they say let’s do it now; let’s get rules strong from the start and then they will know where to make investments. So strong business forces can certainly change political dynamics a lot.
So this is one area where the private sector is taking positive steps environmentally. An even more important area, of course, is the way that businesses invest and carry out their operations as well.
EBBF: Why? Can you expand on that?
Sylvia: Well, the energy sector is the one I’ve been reading the most about lately. The direction of investments in the next few years will be hugely influential in avoiding most bad things as a result of climate change. Businesses need to direct their investments towards renewable energy, clean energy. Also, they not only have to look at how the energy is produced, but also how it is consumed, and consider refurbishing houses and buildings in order to save energy. So they must look at their investments there.
The energy sector is the most obvious one, but by implication it also refers to the transportation sector—one of biggest energy users. And there are figures now that really look at the potential of investing in renewable energy, in mass transportation, and that this would create many more jobs than through traditional high polluting types of transport. There is a great potential to create lots of jobs by making this change, but this really requires them to exercise some moral leadership at all levels.
EBBF: What do you mean by ‘moral leadership’?
Sylvia: This means that any actor is required to go beyond what is required from him by law, what we need is people in government and business that exercise moral leadership and go ahead of the curve and make the type of choices about what business is about, what to invest in, what financial services to invest in, to start the transition to a low-carbon society, without neglecting other environmental challenges that are still there. This is the thing, there is a tendency to sit and wait for government to force you to do things. For example, the car business in the European Union has said that they will make the transition to low-carbon emissions by themselves in a voluntary fashion. But voluntary initiatives only sometimes work. This is place where we (business) can do so much more, because governments are very careful not to step on business’s toes, or become unpopular with them. Therefore businesses that stick out their heads and go ahead of others is what we need. This will enable government to make more stringent rules, and force the laggards—the non moral leaders—to be brought up to the next level. The fastest way to do that is to have real examples of moral leadership.
The morals in this are about global solidarity, about caring for people around you who live today and who will live tomorrow. Poor people are the ones most vulnerable to changes in the climate. We should feel equal love towards the generations of tomorrow as towards those we love today. The morals here are about loving your neighbor. It really isn’t more advanced than that. You can look at it in detail and calculate which countries are more responsible for emissions, but everyone must look at this as an act of global solidarity. It’s also an act of intergenerational justice, but it’s really about love. It sounds a bit simplistic, but I can’t see it in any other way.
EBBF: Are there any examples of businesses in particular that are taking on this role as a moral leader? What does this look like?
Sylvia: There certainly are, but I am not following them closely so I would rather not give names. There are examples of small business who make small yet creative measures to reduce their footprint, and large businesses who can do more challenging things. Sometimes the reasons for ‘going green’ may be superficial, to get a good image etc., but over time it usually shows if they are serious and genuine in their commitment. For example, I think two major oil companies who some years ago made big news and pr campaigns about investing in renewable energy are now closing down or reducing this investment, and this at a time when it is clearer than ever both that oil is getting scarcer and that climate change is a huge challenge. Clearly these companies did not have moral intention to be a leader for the environment.
EBBF: Your research is on figuring out what approaches to international environmental problems actually work. Have you found anything that backs up what you are saying, of the effectiveness of this kind of moral leadership, of love?
Sylvia: I could not claim that I have in a direct way (that is very difficult to prove or disprove) but I must say that when I follow the international negotiations on a new agreement on climate change which are to be concluded in Copenhagen in December this year, then I can only conclude that the biggest obstacle for a successful outcome is exactly this: the absence of moral leadership and love.
Now is the time when we really need to have examples of leaders in business and government, and individuals encouraging them to do so, who will demonstrate their love for others and for the planet, and will take bold and decisive steps towards curbing greenhouse gases, and figuring out a way to operate in a new, greener way. This is a brief window of opportunity, and we need this critical mass to lead the way. I’m sure it will happen, the question is just when, and how much suffering it will cause before humanity takes these issues earnestly.
