Is the environmental movement dead?

[quaoar]

I sure as hell hope not.

But this article from Salon makes some provocative arguments:

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/01/14/death_of_environmentalism/index.html

In the self-published paper "Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World," released at the Environmental Grantmakers Association meeting in Hawaii in early October, Michael Shellenberger, a political strategist, and Ted Nordhaus, a political pollster, argued that "modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ecological crisis." Their wide-ranging 36-page indictment charges that the country's largest environmental organizations have spent 15 years and hundreds of millions of dollars fighting global warming but have "strikingly little to show for it."

It's a heartfelt, sweeping, even anguished J'accuse, urging a dark night of the soul for environmentalists, challenging them to reckon with both how bad and how urgent their predicament really is. It laments that the environmental establishment's current approach to fighting global warming is hopelessly wonky, mired in technical policy fixes, like raising CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) emission standards on cars or mandating cap-and-trade schemes on CO2-emitting power plants. The organizations suffer from pigheaded "policy literalism," refusing to recognize that they're in the middle of a culture war that won't be won by "appealing to the rational consideration of our collective self-interest."

The paper suggests that if environmentalists want Americans to join them wholeheartedly in the struggle to save the world, an ambitious, perhaps utopian, strategy is required: nothing less than an inspiring vision of an environmentally sustainable future that Americans will actually want to live in.

The attack struck a nerve. In early December 2004, Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope fired back with a 6,500-word response. Addressing grantmakers who might have received the paper, he called it "unclear, unfair and divisive" and "self-serving." But even as he enumerated what he saw as the essay's multiple factual errors and misinterpretations, he conceded that they made "one extremely compelling point."

< snip >

[mike_c]

1. I still think Garrett Hardin got it right in 1968....

http://dieoff.org/page95.htm

Appeals to conscience don't work at all as long as they don't work with EVERYONE, and they never will.

[Greybnk48]

6. Never's a long time!

In the overall scheme of things we are still crawling out of the caves. Can you say with conviction that people 500 or 1000 years from now will still hold nationalistic views that some hold today? Harden's lifeboat ethics fail because of the assumption that humanity will continues to think like we do based on greed and me first attitudes, even racism and bigotry. When he introduces the "lifeboat" to represent one's country he argues that we should keep what we have and not help others because if we make that commitment we will ruin our quality of life--the boat will sink. But our "lifeboat" has occupants from all walks of life. So how do we frame a denial of help? No help to Asians--we are Asian. No help to Aficans--we are African, etc. etc. The lifeboat is a red herring, we're all humans, period. Hardin only includes Americans as worthy of moral consideration (Lifeboat USA) when in fact the Lifeboat is Planet Earth. Eventually we will be enlightened enough to proceed this way, don't give up hope. Dark Ages don't last forever.

One of the most ridiculous elements of his argument is that we should reject refugees who are at risk of death because we have a right to uncrowded beaches! Being born in a wealthy country is (moral)luck; you had nothing to do with it, you didn't earn it, and you should always be mindful of this fact when deciding how to treat those less fortunate.

P.S. Southpark did a parody of Hardin's Lifeboat ethics in and episode titled "Starvin' Marvin."

[mike_c]

7. the link is to The Tragedy of the Commons....

eom

[Up2Late]

2. We could all be dead soon

I found this article today, and I don't quite know what to make of it. Check it out :wtf:<http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index601.htm>

December 22, 2004

Unknown Energy Surges Continue to Hit Planet, Global Weather Systems in Chaos

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to the Russian Academy of Sciences

An increasingly panicked global effort is now underway by the worlds top scientists to understand an unprecedented series of ‘blasts’, energy surges, which the planet has been taking from as an yet unknown source which has been bombarding Antarctica with cosmic rays and disrupting Northern Hemisphere weather systems on a global scale.

(more at link above)

[Lorien]

5. Well, that giant ozone hole

leaving us unprotected from the sun's radiation could have something to do with it.

[RafterMan]

3. Good article, but I think there's an answer

Energy independence and security are *very* popular with the electorate. Green utopia is a hard sell, but Saudi bashing is easy.

I think environmental groups should continue to try to get people to agree with their underlying reasons, but should focus more on building coalitions with groups that share their desired outcomes.

Is the goal to get everyone to agree we should have a cleaner planet, or to actually have a cleaner planet? I say the latter.

[Lorien]

4. When people list their top concerns on DU, the environment

hardly ever makes it to the top ten. Most either think that it's too big an issue to tackle,or they figure that it's already too late, so why bother, or they really bought the RW BS that everything will be OK no matter what we do to the planet. I've always said that without a planet to live on, none of the other issues matter. I guess it will take a complete catastrophy to make humanity care, but by that time there will be nothing we can do to save ourselves.

[Lorien]

8. DU has answered this question

seven posts to this issue. Apathy comes at your own peril, friends.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Yes and no. We are fighting ignorance and apathy as well

as an unhelpful system.

But there is still hope. We can still get somewhere with this. President Kerry would not have spoken out so much about environmental issues while campaigning if he hadn't thought the voters wanted to hear it.

----------------------------------------------------------
Save our country one town, county, and state at a time!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm#why

[Lorien]

11. I went to several Kerry rallies

he never mentioned anything about the environment except to say that Jeb Bush had not fulfilled his promise to clean up the Everglades. It was all about healthcare here in Florida (sorry, but the center of the state is dominated by people under the age of 40). He would have been wise to connect *'s horrific environmental policies to healthcare. Cancer rates are skyrocketing because of lifted regulations for big polluters, the lack of EPA oversight,and because of the thinning ozone layer.

[youngred]

10. Unforunately, yes

people have forgotten their environmental conscience and big business is once again in control.