An Illusion of Progress

Imagine that a small child with many bruises is brought into a doctor’s office. The physician is told she has been repeatedly beaten. The first question asked would surely be: ‘Where does it hurt?’ Then there would be an examination and the application of whatever remedies are possible. But only a callous or immoral doctor would refrain from asking other questions. ‘How did it happen? Who did it? How long has this been going on? Why? How can we prevent it from happening again?’

Now imagine there is a society that suffers many injuries by way of environmental assaults; some of the injuries would be obvious and open raw sores, others more hidden but deeper wounds. The first questions we should probably ask would once again be along the lines of: ‘Where does it hurt? What are the problems? What is being done to violate the air, water, soil, forests, seas, animals – the society’s very sustenance?’ And then, like the doctor, we would examine those practices in detail and set about remedying them. We might even ask: ‘Who did it?’ And maybe we might even find the people responsible, and make them pay for the consequences of their activities and promise never...

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