Look, a photo!
Locally sourced meat, vegan shoes, slave-free chocolate, dairy-free yogurt, a reusable cup, a paper straw.
Being sustainable, broken down to nothing but looks, is a very peaceful aesthetic nowadays.
That aesthetic is not only becoming boring, but increasingly dangerous. It is an easy image to replicate, especially by those that do not really care about it. Companies as objectively malicious as Shell hide behind smiling stock photos of diverse construction workers and engineers, that are just so, so, committed to sustainable emission targets.
Maybe we need a new approach. Sustainability not as a nice, kind and family-friendly wonderland, but a dystopian, larger than life, even religious fight against our own destruction.
Look, a photo:
Armin Linke’s picture of workers praying at the construction site of the Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project is the best and most honest advertisement for our collective effort to maybe, potentially, hopefully not destroy the planet.
The workers, in the middle of a prayer, stand and sit isolated in a sea of concrete that is only illuminated by a few glimpses of mysterious, bright yet shallow white light.
The bodies of the workers fading slowly into the grey and black nothingness around them, the intense dark of the night sky that consumes any attempt of clarity in the picture: this is NOT the same as a reusable Starbucks cup with a flower drawing and a caption that says “SUSTAINABILITY”.
It’s a terrifying picture. Armin Linke’s framing and editing not only makes the workers feel small in comparison to the alien structure they are praying to, but also creates an eerie atmosphere of timelessness. The scene is almost out of this world. There is no indication of day and night, any sign of civilization.
The hydropower project provides around 10% of Pakistan’s power supply. It is a ‘run-of-river’ plant, which means that it stores almost no water within itself. “It relies either on strength of flow of a river, or water from a reservoir or dam upstream”.
Pakistan’s flagship renewable energy project is not without its flaws. That makes sense. Photographs like this one remind us that there is no such thing as a truly ‘green’ energy transition. Any attempt to mitigate the impacts of climate change and, God-forbid, even produce renewable energy, involve some form of damage to our environment. Construction destroys, revamps, pollutes, that’s unavoidable.
We are beyond the point of a peaceful and chic environmentalism in which we can save the planet by ‘consuming sustainably’, but we are not beyond the point of political possibility.
Seeing Belgian farmers throw eggs at the European Parliament last week was a stark reminder that environmental regulation needs to be better. It needs to be realistic not just for policymakers but those affected by the regulation. It needs to be subsidized, prioritized, and not cut short.
Liberal political forces in the EU, Germany, the Netherlands, France and other countries are cutting back environmental regulation in response to criticism instead of improving it. Not only a weak response that of course caters towards the far-right, but also an uninspiring one.
Political change must come from a sense of urgency. The issue is serious, dark, sad, and so on, but it is not impossible to solve.
By the way did I mention that I am doing vegan February?? Vegrurary? Vegruararararararay? Everytime I go for the meatless version of a meal I allow myself a small, almost hidden smile. Smaller than a smile, a tiny smirk. Going delusional, even if just for a second, can be healing.