Addressing Environmental Problems in South Asia and the World: The Need for Multiplism and Policy Relevance

In 2020, the year of COVID-19 pandemic, we learned that the world is global and that in nations, in cities, and even in neighborhoods, we are touched by everyone. The pandemic has proven that environmental problems, broadly defined, are global issues, and that all 7.8 billion of us humans are interdependent. We learned as well that global issues translate into global inequality; the rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer, directly in their financial situation but also in their quality of life, their health, and their physical and social environments. That the world has been shrinking because of travel, financial arrangements, and the internet has been recognized for decades. In 2005, Friedman wrote that the world is flat, by which he meant that global integration in terms of business and finance has reduced the importance of nation states. However, flat-world critics have argued that globalization has not been uniform, benefiting wealthy nations more than developing countries (Stiglitz, 2006). In particular, the world’s flatness is punctuated by areas where history and geography still matter a great deal. Therefore, we need to think about the unevenness of the world in terms of the importance of place. In this essay, I discuss the role of place regarding environmental concerns, which Cone (1986) characterized as being of three types: (a) esthetics and the quality of life, (b) health-related problems, and (c) the use of nonrenewable resources. Environmental esthetics refer to behaviors that make the environment more or less pleasant, such as littering, wilderness protection, and urban decay. Health-related problems refer to detrimental effects of pollution, toxic substances, and noise on physical and mental health. Resource-related problems relate to energy consumption, recycling, overpopulation, and the use of mass-transit. Relevant to this topic, I briefly discuss some of these larger environmental concerns and then discuss some of the research that Professor Pandey and I conducted together. I conclude by arguing that social psychologists addressing global problems need to adopt a multiplist perspective and to work with policy makers to create policy-relevant research.