Better Lives Lecture Reflection
Overexploitation has become a very pressing issue in today’s global climate as wider society begins to realise how severely we are endangering our earth. This broad theme was touched upon in both Katelyn Toth-Fejel’s ‘Society’ lecture and the lecture on ‘Nature’ given by Kate Fletcher. Both speakers highlighted how the human sphere and the natural sphere are inextricably linked, and how this means we have a deep responsibility in caring for the planet before we destroy ourselves through the normalisation of toxic behaviour and a failure to anticipate the future.
During Toth-Fejel’s lecture, it became clear that our current societal situation is the main contributing factor to our sustainability struggles. Western modernism operates on “an economic system whose core logic is perpetual growth in a finite world” (Fletcher, 2015), meaning our societal rules and norms make it very difficult to make the necessary life-changing choices that will save our environment. This is clearly exhibited in through ecological footprints, which is the amount of land and sea area required to provide for individuals and countries around the world. When I tested mine with Global Footprint Network’s tool on their website, I found out that if everyone lived like me, we would need two whole planets for the amount of resources I use alone. And I thought I was quite good at being sustainable! Clearly, I have a reality check pending.
Because many people are like me and are actively exhausting the earth of her resources day after day, all living systems are now in decline; a scary fact that Kate Fletcher noted in her lecture. The majority have reduced by more than 50% due to human impact (see below). Easter Island is a microcosm of this human tendency to exploit nature as a resource to our own ends. The native inhabitants supposedly destroyed themselves after they deforested the whole island to use the trees as tools to transport their iconic statues across the land as part of a tribal ritual.
The geological epoch we are now living in has been dubbed as the Anthropocene, as humans have become the largest influencing factor on the world. Until now, this has not been the case. In 2008, the Stockholm Resilience Centre defined nine planetary boundaries which were necessary for a productive earth. The theory is that if any were transgressed, the earth would fail completely. What I found exceptionally interesting was that three boundaries have already been transgressed. And what is exceptionally sad is that we’re not doing anything to change this. Fletcher put this down to there being a huge disconnect between nature and daily life, akin to the Legacy of Descartes.
So, where do we go from here? I think that social structures need to be rethought if there is to be a sustainability transition, as capitalism is the main driver of our current problems. However, hope can be found in the fact that things can change as capitalism is manmade and, therefore, its solutions can be made by us too. If I had governmental power, I would call for true humanity to be built back into society rather than the superiority of companies and consumerist agendas which has become the norm. Through Better Lives we can hopefully all realise that this requires individual effort to recognise our faults and drive forward collaboration by taking up the reins of humility, boundaries, and togetherness.
REFERENCES
Fletcher, K. (2020) ‘Nature’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 12 February.
Toth-Fejel, K. (2020) ‘Society’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 19 February.
Fletcher, K. (2015) Routledge Handbook of Sustainability and Fashion. Abingdon: Routledge.
Image Credit
WWF, 2016
Stockholm Resilience Centre: J. Lokrantz/Azote based on Steffen et al., 2015