Comments on: The Death of Environmentalism

By: J.S.

J.S. — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:51:59 +0000

Here's environmentalism summarized:Protect the earth's resources in order to promote human health, a sustainable economy, and to enrich all of our lives. The DOE thesis completely underestimates what has been accomplished in a relatively short period and also misconstrues the challenges going forward.J.S.http://voicesofreason.info

By: Dave Pollard

Dave Pollard — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:17:33 +0000

Derek: Good point. Most movements in past have been very focused, often even one-issue. The labour movement, the women’s sufferage movement, and the anti-slavery movement were all successes. The animal rights movement has failed. Not sure how useful these are as models, though all of them seriously threatened the corporatist hegemony of the day.Syzygy: I’d forgotten about the Salon article on this — thanks for the reminder. I’ve added Losing Ground to my ‘to read’ list. You’re right that people respond better to threats than opportunities, but the purpose of s Vision is to take the high road and get them to see the Current State as so suboptimal that they’re prepared to grasp the opportunity to create something better. Although the bogeyman can work, people are very willing to believe the bogeyman doesn’t exist (hence the popularity of Lomborgians) — and if you raise the spectre of a bogeyman (sorry, mixing metaphors) and then he doesn’t show up — a la Ehrlich and the Population Bomb in the 1970s — the damage to your cause is irreparable.Sarah: Thanks, that’s helpful. The Vision desperately has to be personal, ground level, not 30,000 feet.Cyndy: Yes, absolutely. We need to be careful not to ‘frame’ this global movement in a North-America-centric way.

By: Cyndy

Cyndy — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 15:16:55 +0000

When Mr. G mentioned 'grandmother remedies' it made me think of the movement of quite a few conservatives toward homesteading. There is definitely some untapped energy when it comes to conservative values and sustainability. Family farmers in the red states care about the land but have themselves been marginilized. If we could tap into some of their knowledge I think we could accomplish two-fold, getting them involved, and learning some almost-lost skills. Crops, renewable energy and related employment, costs of fuel, supply of fuel, health, all are areas to concentrate on because they are beginning to affect people more and more on a personal level. Great suggestion to have some European environmentalists take a look at our situation. I find many resources online but I'm always struck by the fact that they are very often European sites. 'Green' may not be that big of an obstacle. It's simple and recognisable enough especially when tied into the world view. There will be some backlash in the US but it could very well be outweighed if people saw personal benefits. (selfish lot we are)I absolutely agree that demonstration by practice is where we need to go, even pointing out small things like a friend of mine who has a small solar unit that powers his home theater system 2-3 hours a day. His neighbors are very interested and word spreads, hopefully the practice spreads as well and creates a demand.

By: Sarah Nagy

Sarah Nagy — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 11:47:57 +0000

RE: your hangups with the ‘green’ label – You might check out the mountains of info online about green building, which has looped environmental practices together with saving money on utility bills, indoor air quality, and anti-allergenic design. These three carrots are balanced by the sticks of rising energy costs, rising healthcare costs, rising incidences of asthma/allergies, and mold/moisture liability. A good place to start is National Home Builder’s Association’s technical site at toolbase.org. Not until environmental impacts are personalized, will people change behavior.

By: Syzygy

Syzygy — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 10:32:39 +0000

Again, I rewrote my response into a more coherent form on my blog: http://www.livejournal.com/community/syz_satyagraha/8415.html

By: Syzygy

Syzygy — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 08:46:41 +0000

Interesting. I just got Losing Ground by Mark Dowie from the library, after having read this article: http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/headline.php?id=784 My sense from the article was that Shellenberger and Nordhaus put things too much in black and white, dead or alive.1. Things seem to be going better for environmentalists in Europe. Perhaps some of them could analyze our situation.I don't think that the majority of people are willing to work hard for an ideal. They will, however, work to avoid something unpleasant. Global warming, although it's becoming more prominent, is still too abstract for people to fit into this category. Deformed babies are too rare. Expensive gas isn't that motivating yet. So what fear can get people going? Cancer. Dementia. Harnass the power of the bogeyman. And these are real issues, of course. Though if we could blame obesity on pollution too, that'd be even better.

By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 06:00:59 +0000

> It seems to me a movement needs to be built on a strong and cohesive, relatively complete set of values.My history is bad enough that I can’t really name any movements that I’d consider “successful”. What are your models for “movements”? I’m all for learning from the mistakes of the past, but would love to learn from previous successes.

By: Dave Pollard

Dave Pollard — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 02:16:33 +0000

Gary: Outstanding arguments — thank you for this.

By: mrG

mrG — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:24:44 +0000

I totally agree with the DOE thesis, but for an additional reason that your post here maybe also illustrates:

in 60-some years of trying, the environmental movement has yet to state their case in less than 3 points

This is a serious problem.it's not that the media love soundbytes; I've worked in the media and worked with journalists and they all loath soundbytes, but they have learned the hard way that soundbytes is what the people want. William Lyon Mackenzie King knew that, William Randolf Hearst knew that. It's not out of ignorance or ill-will or even a desire to avoid critical thought. It's because most people have other things on their mind, they live in a world complicated by things beyond environmentalism, and we know this is the case because, if it were otherwise, they would be in the environmental movement.btw, I was serious about that 60 years thing -- I had a swing-era magazine once upon a time with an article about environmentalists and their booth at a big-band festival; in the picture, they were very definately hippies, and the year was very definately pre-WW2 America. I have reason to believe the environmental lobby stretches back to the Old Country, back to the deforestation of Scotland for example, or that of the Black Forest, but I digress.The pro-Industrialization people excell at expressing their goal in a way no one can fault: Jobs. EOT -- Nobody can argue for losing jobs, especially when Alvin Toffler's Leisure Society turned into a Walmart Nightmare. Being against jobs means being against children, against mothers and children, and puppies and sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. You won't win. What is "Environmentalism"? Most equate it to closed mines, closed mills, closed power plants, closed factories, higher operating costs ...

wait a sec ... how can this be? how can the best path for humanity be the most expensive path?

and that's where I began to thing that the first issue to address is that mis-assumption. I know the environmental path is the more sustainable-equals-profitable, and I know because I live this way. So why can't the Environmental Movement articulate solutions that are optimal?One reason is because their demographic makes them reach first for high-technology (read: expensive) instead of asking their Grandparents, but don't get me started on that.so I start with that point: Ecological co-operation is the optimal path. -- I don't want to save the whales because they are intelligent or beautiful or graceful or because my best friend is a whale, I want to save them because it is my most optimal path, because maintaining the web of nature has demonstrated darwinian ecological validity. Solar-powered homes aren't much use if (a) you need an investment larger than most mortgages and (b) you have to live as long as a sea tortoise to get any ROI. Ecological co-existance with the planet must be the more profitable path if only because it removes the expense of our fighting nature, and nearly all the non-Western cultures swim daily in a sea of solutions by which they've come to live peacefully with whatever godforsaken wilderness the Imperial Western Culture has evicted them to :) There are methods and skills, our call to action must be to find them and then use them. Somehow we need to translate all that into "... and it creates high-paying sustainable local employment"and truth is, we have. years ago I did some work translating old Fortran code for people working on sewage reclamation systems. Not as glamourous as a windmill, but eminently important, a "growth industry" and very ecological. Our own Sauble Beach needs some hefty water and sewage solutions, which probably have solutions out there, sitting in someone's great-great-grandmother's diary, and I'll bet, if it works, it's more than a career for more than one of us. There are oodles of other examples, but they don't get press attention, only the back-pages of a few investment guides and academic journals.Point is, we're going nowhere by spinning more rhetoric, we need to demonstrate not by marches and protests but by, putting into practice the ways and means that are ecologically valid and profitable.