David de Rothschild: seeing the big picture

There are plenty of issues facing the world. Chronic ones affect all of us – and there’s none bigger than the degradation of the environment. Unfortunately, the fact that it’s chronic also makes it harder to grasp. We’re effectively working with an outdated brain model – we’re still more worried about, say, being attacked by a shark than the destruction of our habitat. That’s too abstract, too hard to connect to. Nature is so expansive we can’t grasp our part in it.

The words we use define our thinking too: ‘climate change’ we’re not sure about, but nobody wants ‘pollution’. And the predominant narrative doesn’t help either. We consider not the actual impact on nature, but on the economy. It’s all about ‘energy security’ and ‘carbon off-setting’. Or we trivialise it as a form of entertainment.

Part of the move towards positive change is to get beyond this constant flow of bad news and reignite a sense of awe and wonder at nature again. Of course, I admire those heroes who sit in the corner of a jungle counting frogs – we need that. I also understand that you need to grab the attention; part of the interest in the Plastiki [a profile-raising expedition which saw a catamaran made entirely of reclaimed bottles cross the Pacific Ocean] was either to say ‘it will never happen’, or to focus on the element of danger that was involved. And there’s always that tendency we have to compartmentalise, to give what we do a label, and that applies as much to tackling social issues as anything else: there are lots of foundations just looking at, for example, specific types of tree. It’s very focused. But to effect change I feel that we need to get back to seeing the big picture again.

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Getting people to see that isn’t easy of course. Some people feel the environmental issues facing us are just too huge, so they put their faith in politicians. But politicians can’t think in the long term, as we need to. It salves the conscience but doesn’t get us very far. At least now people are receptive. If you told them what to do to have less environmental impact just a few years ago they would generally just tell you where to go. Now people are given choices. And they’re aware of the impact of those. And good, because our impact on the environment is catching up with us.

That’s what makes me what I would call an optimistic pessimist. We’ve just taken off, we’re mid-air and know we’re coming down – but we’ve re-mortgaged the landing strip and that’s getting smaller all the time. So we know we’re going to break something. The question is whether that will be our wrist or our neck. All those cliches about us being in the darkness before the dawn are true. You hear all about these new ideas to tackle environmental impact and they’re very exciting and could effect change. But we’re still thinking and reacting with a redundant mindset. So I have to say that I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

sculptthefuturefoundation.org

DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD is the founder of the Sculpt the Future Foundation, a multi-disciplinary organisation looking to raise awareness, and address issues, of environmental degradation. In 2010 he led the Plastiki through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of marine debris. More recently he has launched a sustainable brand making clothing, spirits, tea and balms