Review of The God Species by Mark Lynas

Mike Childs

03 August 2011

Every evening over the past week, once the kids were in bed and the washing up done, I've settled down to read The God Species. It's a book that is so good in parts that I wanted to give the author Mark Lynas a big wet kiss. But at times it was also so annoying that I wanted to throw a custard-pie in his face (as Mark did to climate sceptic Bjorn Lomborg)

 There are four key conclusions within the book with which I wholeheartedly agree:

1. The identification of multiple planetary boundaries - for example climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen, ocean acidification, etc - gives human-kind for the first time clear goal for maintaining a healthy planet.
2. That this breakthrough in understanding allows us to better understand how critical the current planetary situation is and this should make everyone, including environmentalists, seriously review strategies and positions.
3. That the political polarisation between left and right on climate change and increasingly other environmental issues threatens any chance of progress on these global environmental issues (seen at its most extreme in the United States). In part this division is inadvertently driven by some of the solutions promoted by green groups and others (for example, solutions that are perceived to restrict people's freedom).
4. That humans are incredibly inventive. That with the right frameworks and encouragement we can get out of this mess, and indeed human ingenuity is the only way to do so.

I wanted to give Mark a big wet kiss because these four conclusions are exactly the same as those reached by Friends of the Earth.

Last September we were discussing the same scientific research on planetary boundaries that Mark uses in his book. We decided that this research work was so important that we should organise our new strategic plan around the need to respond to the planetary emergency that the research identified (and Mark explains so well in his book). This would, we agreed, require us to look afresh at our strategies and positions.

We are now doing this, although it will take longer than Mark as he's had the luxury of being the sole decision-maker sitting in his office in Oxford.

There were two reasons why I wanted to throw a custard pie in Mark's face.

1. Mark brackets all environmentalists together - despite the wide diversity in people, groups and opinions - and then creates a crude and grossly inaccurate caricature, painting us all as Luddites, ideologically driven, fiercely anti-capitalist, naively romantic about rural life, dreamers and scientifically illiterate.

Whilst it may be possible if you searched very hard to find a few environmentalists that fit this picture it isn't true of the many environmentalists I know and have met over the last 25 years.

Most are pragmatic, pro-technology, in touch with scientific understanding, and comfortable with the reality of living within a largely urban-based society. Most will rightfully demand deep reforms to the current capitalist model that is wreaking havoc to the planet and causing gross inequalities but that doesn't make them out of touch with the majority of the population as Mark's caricature suggets. Unfortunately Mark's crude caricature distracts from much of the good analysis and reasonable challenges within his book.

2. His optimism for technology to solve planetary problems is far too risky, even though it is also refreshing. Because of this optimism he eschews attempts to get people out of planes, and cars, turn the thermostat down or eat less meat. He does this because he says, rightly, that done badly they can so annoy the political right that it can lead to a political backlash.

Technology does have a critical role to play, for example electric cars, bio-fuels from algae, renewable energy, technologies to take carbon out of the atmosphere, and perhaps even synthetic meat and thorium nuclear power plants. But I think he's fooling himself if he thinks technology alone can solve all our problems. If planetary boundaries are to be respected we can't all eat super-size food portions, drive hummers, and frequent jet about the planet. Behavioural change is an important part of the equation to live within our planetary means. The challenge we have is how to sell behavioural change without creating dangerous and negative backlashes. There is no easy answer to this.

Despite these short-comings I recommend reading The God Species.

Here at Friends of the Earth we are making a bulk purchase of the book for staff and volunteers to read and discuss. Mark is also coming in to discuss it with us (I promise I won't kiss him or custard-pie him). Because, unlike the stereotypes he portrays, we are very open to being challenged.