In this post-industrialisation era, many governments and individuals have raised concerns over the environment; global warming, loss of biodiversity and land degradation pose threats to our survival and add moral burdens on our shoulders. Many international conferences have been held and environmental organizations’ voices have grown stronger than ever before, giving some the illusion that we can restore the environment we damaged. However, efforts by these institutions and individuals, more often than not, do not produce actual effects, due to profit-centric political agenda, technological limitations and nature’s unstoppable force. Thus, it is true to some extent that it is futile to try and save the environment.
Looking through rose-tinted glasses, those who are overly optimistic may claim that the rising concerns for the environment at the national level will make the restoration of the environment an achievable goal. It is true that environmental issues have been brought up in many international conferences. The World Commission on Environment and Development, for example, was established in 1983, where the concept of sustainable development was first acknowledged by multiple nations. In the later years, environmental conventions in Brazil, Copenhagen, Kyoto and Paris brought together world leaders to discuss strategies to save our environment. Such international efforts to address environmental issues paint a promising picture for the optimists, especially when many countries have consistently met the environmental targets set. France, for example, successfully reduced its carbon emission drastically by using nuclear energy to power 70% of its domestic electricity. Example like this can easily give the impression that our efforts to save the environment will be effective, as the world nations seem to be willing to put in resources collectively and some results have been seen.
However, those optimists fail to recognize that those international conferences and the apparent results have too trivial an effect to be able to save the environment, as the current level of technology does not allow us to achieve our ambitions. In particular, the notion that humans can slow down environmental degradation by changing our energy use pattern is overly simplistic, because the process of producing alternative energy itself deteriorates nature. For instance, although many countries have tied to use solar energy as a green alternative for fossil fuels, the production of solar-energy panels involves mining-specific metals, which are already scarce in nature, and the transportation of materials, as well as the manufacturing process of these panels, emits greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Hence, the so-called environmentally friendly energy is ironically environmentally devastating. Furthermore, the waste generated by nuclear plants and the radiation that affects the surrounding ecosystem has also rendered our efforts to save the environment counter-productive, causing further damages to the environment. Therefore, the attempts taken on a national level to restore the environment are rather futile as the solutions to environmental problems still cause an adverse impact on the environment.
Active environmentalists may argue that the awakening of individuals around the world who now advocate for the environment has halted many environmentally damaging projects and activities. With the maturing of democracy across the world, citizens have used their individual power to try to save the environment, by protesting and advocating. For example, Nature Society of Singapore, a non-government organization, published Master Plan for the Conservation of Nature in Singapore in 1990, which propelled the government’s now institutionalized Green Plan that sets aside five per cent of Singapore’s total area for nature conservation. Incidents like this convince the environmentalists that concerted efforts by individuals can be very powerful in protecting our environment. Nevertheless, they ignore the compelling truth that most of the time, profit-driven companies or governments that prioritise economic development are too powerful to be challenged. The Three Gorges Project in China, for instance, caused many environmentalists to protest due to its potential damage on biodiversity. However, the project was continued due to the strong will of the Chinese government and the multiple corporations involved. These examples show that individual efforts are too insignificant to save the environment when most of the time, governments and corporations overpower these individuals.
Lastly, the environmental issues we perceive can simply be a natural pattern that no human efforts can stop. Global warming, for example, is believed by many scientists to be merely a result of increasing solar activity, which has nothing to do with the faults of human. Researchers also point out that, the earth has experienced a period of warming when the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases was low. Scientific pieces of evidence like this reveal the horrifying fact that environmental issues may not be a result of human activities. If so, our efforts to save the environment will not produce any effect. Furthermore, the still-rising carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere is a compelling corroboration that our individual and international efforts achieve a little outcome to stop the possible natural trend. Hence, given the scientific uncertainty about the truth of environmental degradation, it is rather futile to try and save the environment because the force of nature itself is almost unchallengeable.
In conclusion, provided with the current state of science and technology, as well as the socio-economical needs of countries, human efforts to save the environment produce rather negligible outcomes. Moreover, the possibility that environmental issues are merely a natural trend tells us that it is futile to save the deteriorating environment and ourselves from its impacts.