Does environmental protection reduce the well-being of low-income people? A new discussion paper from Oxfam says it’s possible to improve the health and income of people living in poverty worldwide while still making environmentally sustainable choices. However, individual environmental policies may or may not help social well-being.
Oxfam uses an infographic to show the zone of sustainability required for global well-being. The graphic is in the shape of a doughnut; the inside ring is the requirements for human health and survival, while the outside ring is the requirements for reducing environmental impact. The paper’s author, Kate Raworth, believes we can live “within the doughnut.”
A colorful doughnut. Source: stock.xchng.
Diagrams in the report show how close we are to living within this zone of sustainability today. Raworth recommends reducing food losses, improving transportation efficiency, insulating homes, and expanding women’s reproductive rights.
According to Raworth, environmental policies can be socially sustainable because the resources needed to improve the health and income of the poor, globally speaking, are much less than the resources used by the wealthy. The massive environmental impacts we face today are directly related to global disparities in wealth.
Advocating a reduced standard of living for the upper and middle classes is unlikely to win many allies in the United States. The Oxfam discussion paper has received no press coverage in the United States, according to Google News. I found the link to the paper on George Monbiot’s blog at The Guardian.
It’s reassuring to hear this “yes, we can” message amid the cries of concern over global warming.
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Thank you for posting this. I live just outside of Detroit, which became almost like a third world country over the past 30 years, and there’s a movement in the city now towards sustainability. I’m particularly excited by the urban farming movement.
Reducing my own standard of living as I’ve learned about gardening has been a great gift for myself. It seems the things people think they need are the things that harm them the most, and harm the environment the most.
The urban farming movement is exciting.
In what ways have you reduced your standard of living?
Growing food and buying less, working close to home to avoid long commutes, making entertainment through creative projects and conversation, maintaining old things instead of buying new things, “staycationing”, being able to slow down and simply enjoy the simple beauty of an afternoon. These are things I share with my husband; he doesn’t work in the garden. But he loves it. Can you put a value on love?
What I get from the garden is a free gym, a palette for my art and a sort of gallery, a therapeutic/cathartic space to work on psychological growth, a retreat or meditative environment to practice mindfulness, and an iron chef challenge to use all the ingredients that ripen at once!
Philosophically, looking inward rather than outward reduces my economical standard of living while increasing my quality of life.