How to Improve the Environment: Become a Proactive and a Reactive Society

By: Rebecca Kim

In his The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi sets the story in the future to warn the current society of what could happen if there were no actions being taken to address environmental problems. More specifically, Bacigalupi surrounds his story in a time where calorie companies dominate food production through “generhacked seeds.”  The presence of calorie companies refers to the grim future that today’s society could experience if Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) dominate the food market. As a matter of fact, Bacigalupi illustrates in a world where people are genetically modified, implying that the extensive use of GMOs could pave a way for genetically modified humans.

The extensive presence of GMOs also alludes to the argument that utilizing GMOs is merely a reactive way for today’s society to adapt to climate change, instead of proactively working to prevent climate change. Therefore, a reactive approach could lead to a grave disaster (e.g., genetically modified humans used for slavery). In other words, by creating a world where genetically modified organisms and humans exist, Bacigalupi is arguing against a reactive approach. However, in order to improve the environment and combat against climate change, a reactive approach and a proactive approach must be utilized. 

Many environmentalists and scholars define reactive approach as responding to the past rather than anticipating the future while a proactive approach acts before a situation becomes a source of confrontation or crisis. Given the definitions of reactive and proactive approach, they share many similarities with William Easterly’s definitions of searchers and planners in his The White Man’s Burden. To explain, a proactive approach can be seen in the similar light as Easterly’s definition of planners. Both definitions encourage people to think of big ideas (e.g., nation-wide campaigns) that prevent climate change from at least exacerbating. On the other hand, reactive approach and searchers think of locally enforceable and practical ideas in order to respond the current environmental issues.

Easterly argues that enforcing practical solutions in local areas are more an effective approach when trying to solve an international crisis because searchers could observe the effectiveness of such solutions through market feedback mechanisms. Although Easterly makes a valid point that reacting to a crisis by enforcing practical solutions is more efficient, such solutions may not be beneficial in the long run. For example, in The Windup Girl, Bacigalupi argues that resorting to GMOs is beneficial in the short-run as they provide vast quantities of food to developing countries at a lower price. Nevertheless, heavily relying on GMOs results in a widespread of diseases and plagues, a detrimental outcome for the society in the long run. Therefore, the ambitious goals that planners set are needed in order encourage the international community to make proactive decisions and prevent detrimental outcomes from occurring in the long run.

To be more specific, because of the relatively low price and the vast quantities of food that GMOs can provide, GMOs will send positive feedback to searchers, which will signal GMOs as one of the more effective solutions that could combat today’s food shortage in developing countries. However, in order to prevent Bacigalupi’s futuristic scenario from occurring, environmentalists and scientists must realize that GMOs are only temporary solutions; utilizing GMOs is a way to give scientists the time to research to invent technology that can solve issues that arise from food production due to climate change (i.e., drought). While temporarily implementing a reactive solution, planners must plan national campaigns to raise awareness and funds from all over the world for scientists’ research. Scientists’ research on preventing draughts, for example, in many developing countries is a proactive approach that could permanently solve the food shortage issue and inhibit the current society from turning into Bacigalupi’s futuristic society.