Conservatism and sustainability

Interview

Roger Scruton is a British philosopher and writer. He has previously taught at Cambridge University and the University of London, and is the author of over thirty books including Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet. In an interview with Open Citizenship, he speaks about the importance of local attachments to sustainability, and the need for conservatives and liberals to work together to develop sustainable solutions.  

In 2012 you published Green Philosophy, which offers a conservative perspective on sustainability based on the notion of oikophilia, or “love of home”. Who was your main audience in writing this book and what message did you intend to share? Has your book resonated with conservatives and environmentalists? 

Green Philosophy was directed at serious-thinking environmentalists, and the message of the book, as I intended it, was that the environmental agenda had been wrongly aligned with the long-standing causes of the left. These causes – social justice, equality, the redistribution of privilege and property – require massive top-down interference from the state. But the top-down attempt to reorganise society in the interests of some overarching goal is precisely what poses the biggest threat to the environment, as we have seen from the various socialist experiments. My book has resonated with some conservatives – especially in America – and with some environmentalists, including many on the left. But of course it has not had the impact that I would have liked among politicians, which is not surprising, given that they have neither the time nor the inclination to read serious books.

Your notion of oikophilia is deeply rooted in a sense of place: people want to preserve their home, and therefore sustainability functions best at the individual or small community level. This seems to connect with the environmental justice movement, in which poor, disadvantaged communities seek to rid themselves of environmental destruction in their communities. At the same time, you are critical of social movements, which you argue have done more harm than good. What would you say to environmental justice activists?

I applaud the attempts by poor and disadvantaged communities to rid themselves of environmental destruction. But I applaud the attempts of rich and privileged communities to do the same. I think the environmental justice movement has run together two agendas that may sometimes be compatible, but may equally sometimes conflict. In Britain the most positive environmental force has been that exerted by civil associations of middle class people, fighting to preserve a cherished inheritance, in the manner of the National Trust. I give some examples of this in my book.

You have said that conservative philosophy and the love of home are connected. Do you find that love of home is fostered by conservative philosophy, or that a conservative philosophy grows out of a love of home? Do you think there are more international forms of citizenship which can also accommodate this love of home? 

I think the love of home is the essence of conservatism (with a small “c”, of course); you can love the home of others and want to protect it and to enhance it. The true environmentalist is someone who sympathises with local attachment, even if he or she does not share it. I think of those who want to save the lifestyle of the inhabitants of the Kalahari, for example. It is of course possible to be a citizen on several different levels – and maybe that is an ideal that will shape our best efforts in the future. But we must never sit on the top rung of the ladder and not care for the rungs beneath it.

You have been sceptical of transnational consensus building, which you see as a way of taking sovereignty away from a nation-state. What alternative would you suggest to promote international action to guarantee effective action that matches the scope of problems such as climate change?

I am in favour of transnational consensus building when it occurs. But so much that pretends to be that is in fact a kind of dictatorship, either by lobbyists or by vested interests. Agreements between strong democratically elected governments can reflect real decisions in which all people are involved. But the places in which environmental destruction is worst – the Middle East, for instance – do not have such governments, and do not have any consensus either. I think the rational response to climate change is to acknowledge this problem, not to pretend that it does not exist.

What is for you the most pressing problem of unsustainability that needs to be solved?

There are many pressing problems which are not addressed because of the – to date largely futile – obsession with climate change. Among these problems I would especially mention (i) political instability, leading to mass migrations and (ii) the destruction of the world in general, and the oceans in particular, by plastic.

The best use of the transnational institutions established since the last war is to concentrate on the problem of resolving conflicts, like that between Shia and Sunni, while confronting terrorism and intervening in boundary disputes where necessary. This is a long term project, but one that is capable of incremental progress. The German response is to withdraw into wishful thinking and to pretend that conflicts will go away and life at home will remain the same. The conflicts will not go away if they are not addressed, and life at home will not stay the same when refugees arrive, many of them bringing with them the conflicts that caused them to move. The right response, I believe, is to form alliances that make intervention possible – which is what we should have done in Syria.

As for plastic – this is a problem that might require international regulations, but which can be addressed already without attempting to draw up a treaty (which would be difficult as it is not in the interest of China, for example). Were the USA to ban the use of non-degradable packaging, and also non-degradable toys and other luxury items, the whole world, which depends on exports to America, would have to follow suit.

Your policy prescription seems to focus on using market mechanisms, such as the EU’s emissions trading scheme, to internalise environmental costs. This works well in dealing with clearly defined problems, but many problems related to sustainability are marked by uncertainty: we simply do not know how or when ecosystems will react to human-caused changes. How would you suggest tackling such issues? 

I favour market mechanisms where feasible. As you say, however, markets operate against a background of known conditions, which may be disrupted without warning. Hence we need to develop all the ways in which human beings react to shocks, and learn to absorb them. There are many institutions and mechanisms that have evolved in response to this need to adapt: the common law; the associations of volunteers; the tradition of local rescue squads; the setting up of trusts to manage water supplies or to distribute shared resources, of the kind studied by Elinor Ostrom. We should be more aware than we are of the flexibility and adaptability of human nature and of the institutions that we have developed in connection with these things.

You have written of the primacy of the local over the national or international in green and sustainable living. Can all three concepts combine harmoniously to tackle the environmental issues we face, or are they misaligned? 

I would say that we can tackle our environmental problems only by first learning to see them as ours. The “we” feeling is vital, the sine qua non, and it grows first at the local level, and translates itself into politics at the national level. Only if those first two levels are in place does the search for international cooperation make sense. Otherwise there is no answer to the question “cooperation between whom?”

Do you think it could be possible for liberals and conservatives to agree on an agenda related to sustainability? What would such an agenda look like, and how could it be realised?

Yes it is possible to work together. Conservatives, in my experience, want to do so. However left-liberals tend to think of us conservatives as evil, and not simply mistaken, which is how we think of them. I worry about this. The only response I can think of is to write a mild-mannered book defending my position, which is what I tried to do. As for the agenda, it is what I set out in that book. I think it is up to the liberals to respond, if possible while entertaining the view that conservatives may possibly be human. We can surely agree about two fundamental principles: that the cost of environmental damage must be borne by the one who causes it; and that people should be free to associate with the view to protecting their shared assets. The record of English law in those two matters is commendable, of other systems less so. But those principles mark out a path to follow which is not a statist path, nor an ideological path, but simply the path suggested by moral responsibility.