An on-and-off Career in Environmental Policy

Why and how did you come to environmental policy?

Temper usually decides a writer to answer a personal question (like the above) in social more than psychological terms. And taste will determine which the reader thinks more hubristic. As I cannot control the latter, and feel, for the moment, in control of the former, I will in this short piece avoid meandering into the recesses of psychology – though some lapses into stream-of-consciousness, where inclination has so demanded, will, I hope, be excused.

Let us say that circumstance tossed me on the shores of environmental studies and then, just so, swept me from it. To answer why I have decided now to seek a career in environmental policy, it seems I must first explain what drove me away. I began my academic career studying marine biology in the Florida Everglades (disturbing alligators for a living). I went on, thereafter, to graduate in Environmental Law and Policy. Two seemingly random anecdotes, one from each pursuit, will set us towards our purpose.

First, of the Everglades. Say, your boat has snaked its way into the marshy waterways of the swamp, a few miles beyond the reaches of civilisation: a stray Tilapia swims into your ken. He glints his presence as the midday sun pervades the turbid waters and catches at a sharp angle the brilliant blue of his dorsal scales. As a biologist in bud, you are to know he is a member of an invasive species (his ancestors bought, perhaps, for food or ornament, but rejected, all the same, into those silent, anonymous streams); you are also to know the ‘scientific protocol’ to deal with these unwelcome artefacts of humanity’s lost appetite:

Once you have lured him onto your boat, dock at an approachable bank past which stretches a significant zone of riparian hardwood; clasp the tip of the upper lobe of his tailfin by your index finger and thumb; twice pirouette in a clumsy parody of the discus-throw and launch the gilled outlaw into the waterless branches beyond. Just so, is justice served for ecological science.

Next, to the 18th COP in Doha, Qatar. To an aspirant in the world of environmental policy, the pageantry, initially, is rather exhilarating. It takes a while, therefore, to realise that a day’s worth of rhetoric has traversed the maintenance of economic prosperity and the plight of future generations, and not very much else. Considerations about humanity’s relationship with and duties to the natural world seem quaint, beyond the pale of even mention…something about bicycle paths for our grandkids, interrupted with tumultuous applause, and I too join in.

The next day, the leader of our motley delegation, a Finnish blonde of arresting aspect, convinces (without much effort) the delegate of Venezuela, a more-than-middle-aged bachata enthusiast - also the designated convener - to allow a select few of us into the informal negotiations (where there is no media, and so consequential discussions can be had). The spotless collars arraying the negotiating table number the oratorical champion of bicycle paths among them. The Scandinavians appeal, island nations exhort, the American makes a proposal for the rest of the world, the Chinese politely decline, and we part friends.

Some months later, I was shuffling through Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac. He recounts in an anecdote (the last I will bother you with in this blog, I promise) the curious aftermath of a fateful hunt. His unwavering gaze pierces the irregular terrain as the muzzle of a rusting rifle, lying pendant on his sturdy wrist, follows with dogged precision the purposeful movements of a great, shaggy predator among the trees. Finger meets trigger. And the hunter recalls:

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then and have known ever since that there was something new to me in those eyes, something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. 

That is no argument; but it had me convinced. And, I reflected, more of “such a view” prevailed in the biology lab and the UN conference than those there would care to admit.

I took a break from environmental policy to study philosophy. The sabbatical lasted seven years. And now I want back in to environmental policy. Mere caprice? I hope not. Of course, all the usual clichés of philosophy – one comes out of it knowing less than when going in, it makes one lose all conviction, etc. – have all proven true. But one thing may be said in its favour: it reconciles one to the way of things: and yet, while so doing, poses no contradiction to the pursuit of change.

(Environmentality is a collection of ideas, perspectives, and commentary by researchers at the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not represent institutional views.)

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