focus on margaret atwood

Margaret believes the greatest contemporary environmental threat we are facing is that of an ever increasing population which is gobbling up the world’s natural resources at an unsustainable rate.

“No society can survive the destruction of its natural resources,” she said, pointing to the demise of the Sumarian and Mayan societies due to over-irrigation. Margaret furthered this comment by stating that habitat depletion and the like are well published, well known issues and a tempting solution would be to make new resources.

This leads us into the murky territory of genetic engineering, which many claim is going to save the day. In Margaret’s opinion, genetic engineering is a tool and as such is value neutral. “I can’t make a pronouncement about genetic engineering, any more than I could do about hammers – it is what you do with it.” The good or bad values of such tools are derived from our behaviour and how we use our tools.

The fear with genetic engineering is that we have the capability to change human nature – which means essentially introducing new species and we should be very careful about the outcomes of what we are doing. We should beware “the doctrine of unintentional consequences,” said Margaret, using the introduction of cane toads and rabbits into Australia and possums into New Zealand as examples.

According to Margaret, effective change can be gained from educating consumers to consume in different ways, such as replacing fossil fuels with solar energy and purchasing organic food over ‘conventional’ foods. Take for example the growth in the organic industry of 10% in one year – understandable considering that organic food tastes better (Margaret professed to have previously given up on broccoli and apples).

The contemporary response to environmental issues is consumer choice, awareness, labelling, understanding what we are eating, and the subsequent interest that the market has in consumer awareness.

In skipping to the issue of race relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, Margaret describes a pattern of what happens when technology A meets technology B, and technology A can kill you faster. In colonial history, “technology B has not done so well, and technology A has not behaved so well.”

Germs however are of particular interest, as germs caused the initial weakening of indigenous peoples across the Americas. The Asian and European germ bank travelled faster than the technological frontier or the dispossession by force of guns.

Margaret believes that we are a smart species and can turn things around. It is a matter of will, which does exist, as organisations like Friends of the Earth are testimony to this desire for a different future. She bases her support of Friends of the Earth on the limitations to what individuals can achieve alone, which increases the importance of contributing to organisations that can address larger issues. Given that achieving sustainability in smaller spheres is easier to achieve than in larger spheres, Margaret still prefers the slogan ‘think globally and act locally.’

Her parting suggestion in this interview was that we should convince Cosmo that the ‘o’ in organic means orgasm, definitely an interesting marketing idea!