Opinion: Yom Kippur is an opportunity to take stock of our vulnerability to the environment. We must prioritize our well-being over more and more profits, and start the social change that will lead us from a culture of "use and throw away" to a sustaining reality of true abundance
Dr. Dov Hanin, Angle - news agency for science and the environment
Traditionally, Yom Kippur is a time for reckoning. And even if this is not explicitly mentioned in the Jewish prayer, in recent years there is no doubt that the environmental crisis, and its dramatic manifestation - the climate crisis, oblige us to do a real soul-searching.
Today it is no longer possible to deny that we, humans, sin against the environment - and that we must atone for it. The scientific community explicitly explains to us that the origin of the crisis is not in nature itself - but in man's relationship with nature: according to A meta-study who examined about 90 thousand scientific articles in the field, no less than 99.9 percent of the relevant scientists agree that humans are responsible for the current climate crisis. The problem is not, of course, in human existence itself, because humans have existed on this planet for thousands of years without creating a climate crisis. The origin of the crisis is in society and certain cultures, and we must account for these if we want to protect the living conditions that allow us to exist.
However, the soul-searching we need here is impersonal. I am definitely in favor of each and every one of us trying to behave in an environmentally friendly way - reduce consumption and waste, travel by public transport and reduce the consumption of animal food - but something greater is required of us than a change in private behaviors alone.
The focus on the personal dimension diverts the discussion from the social dimension. If we are all guilty - then none of us is guilty. And if we devote all our energies only to change in the personal circle, we will have too little energy left for the essential change that must be made in our society and culture. The focus on the individual is also very convenient for the big polluters - those who continue to look for ways to avoid responsibility and continue to profit.
Our great sin is a social sin, and its correction must be social change. Dealing with the crisis requires parting with the "use and throw away" culture, which floods our world with mountains of waste of all kinds. The origin of the "use and throw away" culture is found in the current economic system, and its engine is an economic growth mechanism whose real purpose is not to improve our lives but to increase profits. For this purpose, the system moves production to cheaper places, erodes the wages, social conditions and well-being of many people around the world - and also severely damages the natural systems we need for our very existence: as the global economy continues to grow, it consumes more energy and resources and produces More waste.
The earth is not growing
The problem here is simple: the unbridled economic growth takes place within the realms of a planet that has enormous capabilities, but one major drawback - it is not growing. As the natural world shows us, any growth that continues to grow without considering the limits of the tissue within which it exists, endangers its existence - and even its very existence: it will grow and grow until it leads to its collapse, and its own death.
Therefore, we need a new model of development - one that will be sustainable, and that will not focus on the production of more and more goods, but on the creation of real abundance and prosperity, which will be achieved through a proper distribution of the resources and the products that our environment really allows us to produce.
It is usually difficult for us to think about making a deep change in our lives and our world. Such changes threaten our way of life and routine. And really big change is something we usually have trouble even imagining. But this time we cannot avoid the change. The enormous environmental crisis requires it. Beyond that, this profound change holds a great opportunity: it can not only protect our lives, but also make them better.
How is the quality of our lives really determined?
Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate in economics, proposed to stop focusing on GDP (which is a measure of the amount of products), and instead place at the center of the economic discussion what we can really be and do in our lives. Development, according to Sen, is first of all the removal of the limitations that prevent people from realizing their abilities. And these abilities depend less on products - and much more on social arrangements. According to his concept, our true quality of life is not determined by the amount of products around us, but by the answer to the fundamental question "What can we do or be in life?" - which depends on the level of medical services available to us, the quality of education available to us, the degree of satisfaction and creativity we feel in our work, the quality of social relations and the level of equality and community in them, the scope of political rights and the nature of gender relations in the society in which we live.
Will we be able to prioritize life and our health over profits? Will we know how to free our political imagination and think about a different society, about a different nature of economy, politics and culture? Will the crisis lead to disaster - or will it be an opening for progress?
The answer is in our hands. And that's the real soul-searching we have to do.
Dr. Dov Hanin teaches at the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and serves as the chairman of the Israel Climate Forum founded by the President of the State. He is the scientific advisor for the Hebrew edition of the book "Less is More" by Jason Hickel, which was recently published by Radical Publishing.
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