The green movement has spread across many fields, such as architecture, engineering and economics. The movement aims to push back global warming by minimizing the consumption of the earth’s resources, which is caused by human activities.
To achieve the objective, living in a modest way is perhaps the only solution. In their 2009 book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, Prof. Brenda Vale and Prof. Robert Vale state that the human race could exist in a sustainable manner if everybody lived in the same way our ancestors did over 100 years ago.
Many people in some parts of Indonesia, like vernacular societies of Baduy, Kampung Naga, East Nusa Tenggara and Papua, emulate ancient lifestyles. So do those in abject poverty. Baduy people in Banten live modestly, as their ancestors did, by strictly prohibiting community members from using modern technology like electricity and motorized vehicles.
People in that community also use almost no fossil fuels but unfortunately this kind of lifestyle is described as “backward” or “primitive”. A country where the majority of citizens are poor will certainly be categorized as “less developed” or “underdeveloped” due to the absence of modern technology and minimum consumption of the earth’s resources.
This so-called backwardness or underdevelopment has in fact helped reduce the earth’s resource consumption and produce fewer hazards to the environment, which is in line with the idea of the green movement.
Underdeveloped nations, which would then be called “developing countries”, fell under the Third World grouping as a consequence of their refusal to be aligned with either the West or the East.
Shortly after the first Asia Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955, the world was divided into three. The First World included developed western countries, the Second World grouped together eastern European countries and the Third World comprised the poor, underdeveloped countries, mostly former colonies of First World countries in Asia and Africa. The Third World was perceived as backward in many aspects of life, including economy, welfare and its stage of civilization.
In 1986, Prof. Nigel Harris of University College of London published an interesting book titled The end of the Third World: The Newly Industrializing Countries and the Decline of an Ideology. By taking Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan as case studies, the book argued that the Third World no longer existed. Examining well-being through the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, the four countries discussed by Harris, except Taiwan, which is not recognized by the UN as a sovereign state, are in the first “Very High Human Development” (VHHD) group.
The HDI ranked Norway as first from 187 countries with a score of 0.943 points. Hong Kong was 13th (0.898), South Korea 15th (0.897) and Singapore 26th (0.866). All these countries surpassed the UK, which was placed 28th (0.863).
The remaining three groups are the High Human Development (HHD) group, the Medium Human Development (MHD) group and the Low Human Development (LHD) group. Indonesia is in the MHD group, ranked 124th with a score of 0.617, while most African countries that attended the Bandung conference are in the LHD group (below 0.522 point).
The HDI tends to have a correlation with consumption of earth’s resources. The higher the HDI score the more likely nations are to have higher resource consumption levels and the more like they are to produce higher levels of waste. Using an ecological footprint (EF) parameter to measure national demands for the earth’s resources, the HDI seems closely related to the values of the EF. A nation with high HDI values tends to score high in EF.
EF, which is measured in global hectares (gha), was firstly introduced by William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel in 1992. EF is a calculation of human demand for the earth’s resources, standardized by land and sea areas that can regenerate resources being consumed by the population and mitigate associated waste. The higher the EF, the higher the individual or nation consumes the earth’s resources and produces more waste.
The green movement views those with high resource consumption rates as significant threats to the earth. Therefore, nations with a high HDI might be grouped as less secure nations in respect of the earth’s safety. The First World consists of almost all nations in this group. The green movement would view this group as ranking lowest regarding the earth’s safety, whilst the Third World group, although ranked lowest in regard to development, leads the pack in the eyes of the green movement, as Third World countries are the lowest consumers of the earth’s resources.
The so-called end of the Third World, inspired by Harris, does not mean the end of the world’s problems. Former Third World countries that have developed into First World countries, such as Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore are now becoming new threats to the earth’s sustainability as they consume more of the earth’s resources.
As economic growth is accepted as one parameter to measure development, no nation wants to stop or slow its economic growth. The more that nations grow their economies and the higher their HDI values, the more the earth’s resources are consumed, which makes the planet more vulnerable.
To save the earth, the values must be reversed. The so-called developed countries with high HDI ratings must be classified as the “New Third World” and poor countries with low HDI ratings must be called the “New First World”. The current trend of the poor following the rich must be changed if the sustainability of our planet is to be achieved.
The writer, a professor of architecture, is a visiting academic at the School of Architecture and Design, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
