Filed under: Society + Media
The first time I saw the title of Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus’s book The Death of Environmentalism, I was surprised by the boldness of these two green Nietzsche’s. That seemed like an awfully silly statement. It seems as if the green movement is everywhere. It’s on campus, in the news, on our favorite TV shows, and it’s even seeping it’s way into our once-viewed-as-evil corporations (now, maybe just evil corporations who are greenwashing). Heck, I can even drink beer and feel less guilty than I did a year ago.
So how could environmentalism be dying?
Well ‘dems be some purty strong words. It might be a little overboard to use the word “dying” as if to infer that soon their will no longer be environmentalism. But Shellenberger and Nordhaus are pretty right-on with some of their points. Government decision-making seems to move at sloth pace, especially when it comes to issues about the environment. And policies are far to simple. It is as if we make one law that will benefit one problem of one issue of one side of one area of global warming and it’s a major environmental breakthrough. At this rate, we will never undergo the change we need in order to save the environment.
Death is a little much. But maybe Shellenberger and Nordhaus were right to rattle the cage a little. Green needed a wake-up call.
-Travis Brown
Filed under: Society + Media
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream speech” is famous because it put forward an inspiring, positive vision that carried a critique of the current moment within it. Imagine how history would have turned out had King given an “I have a nightmare” speech instead.
When we talk about “hooking the reader” in journalism, the line above has got to the one of the best ones I have read. Talk about getting the reader’s attention. This was not the first line in this essay, but even in the middle of all the “environmental” talk of it, it hooked.
I’m not going to lie, I really liked the The Death of Environmentalism. Although I don’t agree with everything in it, it was incredibly well-written, informative, witty, and spoke the plain English most people like myself crave. Something about it really hit home with me. I’m not agreeing and saying that we should drop all the progress we have made thus far in the climate change issue and start-over, but I also think somewhat of a ‘new plan’ couldn’t hurt.
The authors’ proposal of a new, innovative environmental approach makes more sense to me than the traditional approach that clearly has not worked very well thus far. Instead of continuing on a road that seems to be going slowly downhill, why not ‘back up’ as they suggested, and re-map?
As we discussed in class, climate change has been as issue for years. Yet we have not found an effective way, as a whole, to make a big change. Yes, companies are “going green,” and politicians claim to support the issue, but how long has that taken and what is REALLY being done about it? It’s taking TOO long to make people listen, in my opinion. I don’t believe that focusing on just one issue, like limiting our use as humans, or reducing carbon, is the answer. As the authors point out, sometimes what we need is a new plan.
The reality is that making a big dent in global warming might require slashing emissions by 80% or more, something that’s not possible with current technology unless we don’t drive, fly, or power our homes. No one will sacrifice that much.
America thrives on ideas and dreams, new technologies and the future. Their suggestion of using these things to overcome this crisis is just that: innovative. I think environmentalists should listen.
-Sarah Nelson
Let’s examine for a moment the name “Environmental Protection Agency”. This agency, comprised of human beings, is charged with the responsibility of enacting policies that protect, conserve, preserve the environment. The environment, as in the world “out there”, is where “nature” exists for humans to look at, their noses pressed against the glass.
Our relationship with the environment, embodied by our political actions to “protect” it, has long been dictated by the idea that humans have a God-given obligation to name and watch out for all the little creatures and green plants that inhabit the planet (discussed in this book). We humans are above and separate from nature, not an integrated thread woven into her fabric.
This cultural view of nature has existed in this country since the moment Europeans decided to come and tromp around. It has allowed, even insisted, that the environment is here for human use, that God has designated us the caretakers and thus, beneficiaries, of all nature’s wonders. I would argue that a new look at our environmentalist movement will require a new way of looking at the environment.
At the risk of promoting the idea of the Noble Savage, the indigenous peoples to this area seem to have had something right. They definitely manipulated and changed their environment in vast ways, and in many cases in MesoAmerica managed to outgrow their capabilities and environment to the point of their own destruction. Their inherent philosophy in which humans were a part of nature as much as any other species, can still be useful to us today.
Contemporary indigenous philosophers, including Vine Deloria, Jr., and Kirkpatrick Sale, blame the current state of the environment on eurocentric viewpoints that limit their interaction with nature to one of use and protection. They may have a point, seeing as how our political association with the environment is named the EPA.
Sidenote: If you still need Western Civ. credits, I highly recommend looking into taking it through Haskell with Dan Wildcat – a non-eurocentric (yes, really) look at all western civilizations and their major philosophers and texts.
–Jennifer Kongs
Filed under: Business + Politics | Tags: death of environmentalism, democratic caucus, focus the nation, green politics
It seems the world is at a stand-still. Yes, the Earth may still be runnin’ circles around the sun, but nothing seems to be happening or changing. For me, being thrust into this environmental war, it seems like, happened a little unwillingly, and quite unexpectedly. But, isn’t that how we all end up in messes we feel we can’t erase? It’s never intentional, or at least we’d like to think it’s not.
As the time for the Democratic caucus is racing toward me tonight, I’m still unsure where I stand politically. I’ve always been indecisive — maybe that’s the Libra in me. But, I’m always lingering on certain subjects and weighing each option over the other as if the end of the world is in my hands.
So, what do politics have to do with the environment, anyway? A whole heckuva lot. After attending the Focus the Nation panel last Thursday, and now reading the Death of Environmentalism essay by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, the correlations between politics and the “environmental dilemma” is ever more apparent to me. At Focus the Nation, a panel of 13 individuals at all levels of government discussed the issue of climate change, hoping to offer regional impacts and possible solutions. As the discussion opened, one of the introducers said this discussion was meant as a starting point, only to set the grounds for further development in our area, Kansas, and the United States. It only left me with more and more unanswered questions. The panel of politicians and officials stated what they were doing as individuals to help the global warming phenomenon, talking of being hybrid-, CFL-, and reusable grocery bag-owners. But, what does that have to do with we, the people, or what we can actually do to effect change? It’s tough because these people– leaders of rank and office– aren’t guaranteed a life-long job as governor of this or senator of that. How can we make goals that will be achieved in ten, twenty, thirty years, when our leaders are only in office for a few?
Shellenberger and Nordhaus hit the nail on the head. There isn’t much environmentalists and politicians have been doing. Simply put, the movement didn’t just fail. It’s dead. Here’s where our government leaders come on. They said , “Everyone is looking for short-term policy pay-off. We could find nobody who is crafting political proposals that, through the alternative vision and values they introduce, create the context for electoral and legislative victories down the road. Almost every environmental leader we interviewed is focused. Almost every environmental leader we interviewed is focused on short-term policy work, not long-term strategies.”
Isn’t global warming something that has happened as time goes by? Aren’t things just going to get worse? All we have is time, and we’re doing nothing about it. Just like the panel, we’re all taking individual steps toward our own goals, but when do those steps lead to a revolution? If environmentalism isn’t dead, then our understanding is. And our passion. And, quite possibly, our unity as a nation. Nothing big will happen until we can work on this together– until every person can understand the issue and create a solution. I think this will only happen if we elect a leader who is dedicated to this movement and dedicated to saving our future.
So, as the caucuses and primaries approach even faster, I’d like us all to keep this issue in mind: the environment and politics. Or else, I’m not sure if we can enliven this issue off the hospital bed.
–Danae DeShazer
I agree with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus when they said “environmentalism can no longer rely on a negative, complaint-based style of activism that fails to engage with the public.” http://adbusters.org/blogs/Big_Ideas_The_Death_of_Environmentalism.html Being negative is not going to help. That is just going to make people feel bad about the ways they are living their lives or angry that someone is telling them they have to change.
Environmentalism needs to take another approach and I feel that is what those guys are advocating. For example, in the article “the world car free” http://adbusters.org/blogs/World_Carfree_Day_2007.html, it really opened my eyes becuase I was never aware that this day even existed.
I had heard of the day when everyone is supposed to boycott the gas stations, but this is even better! How cool would it be if there was no traffic because everyone was riding public transportation? My bank account would defintiely love me because my car is by far my biggest expense.
When I think back to when I first filled up my tank, it cost $15 and that was only 8 years ago. Now I’m lucky if I can fill up under $30!
What makes the “world car free” even better is that it is a global event and that we as a global community have realized that we need to work together to get this problem solved. It can’t just be one country and not the other because then our work would be in vain. Hopefully we can all get on the same page about this!
Lindsay
Filed under: Society + Media
I thought I had a hangover by the time I finished the Death of Environmentalism. Or that I was drowning in dramatic detail. Thirty years of environmental progress whittled to an argument that we must start over, that the current methods, as described by the authors, aren’t working. It sucked all the joy from highlights and progress over lo these many years.
I had an urge to quench my thirst by dismissing what the authors had to say. And I had a whole list of what I disagreed with, but then I realized it made me sound like a whiney environmentalist. Instead, I took a more sober view: what points had they raised that I agreed with? For one, I think that anyone who wants to change any aspect of the world – even someone else’s opinion – has to recognize the role that values play. Much has been written, in this article and elsewhere, about how much more effective policy change and even holistic social change can be when you tie it to individual value systems. I know from too many late-night conversations at a favorite brewery that if you cannot at least appeal to someone’s frame of reference, the values they already hold, you won’t change their mind. You have to make an argument personally appeal to their worldview.
I also agree that to some extent, environmentalists have defined themselves by what they are not. This is true of almost any movement I can think of. It’s part and parcel of our divisive culture. We are pro-this and anti-that, two camps for every issue. Then there was the claim that evironmentalists don’t know how to build effective coalitions or bridges across multiple groups (or that change would occur if X group would just join in).
But, they are straining in their overall arguments, such as environmentalism is overly tied to policy without politics, that it suffers from literal sclerosis, or that it is isolated from other movements and issues. Nothing crystallized this more for me than the rebuttal from Carl Pope. In Pope’s essay, I see the beginning of what happened between 2005, when “Death” was written, and 2008 – the monumental shift in public opinion to think about the impact humans have on the planet. As global warming or weirding has become more recognizable, it’s showing up as a component in news, the performing arts, economic news, global justice movements, insurance (think hurricanes), etc.
Pope mentioned that the only people the authors talked to were policy “wonks,” when many other people have an influence on environmental awareness and change – especially artists. This will be somewhat of a self-serving remark, but if you want to see how artists are approaching environmental change, go see the art installation “Niche” in Spooner Hall at KU next week. It’s art that can make people confront their assumptions about their environment and the consequences of their choices. It makes environmental choices such as housing and water bottles personal, a matter of (gasp) values. Perhaps that is something the authors of “Death” would agree with. -Jen Humphrey
Filed under: Business + Politics | Tags: democrat, Dennis Moore, environment, environmentalist, focus the nation, global warming, Lauren Keith, Michael Shellenberger, presidential debate, Ron Paul, status quo, Ted Nordhaus, The Death of Environmentalism
Environmentalism today is changing to CFLs, signing a petition here or there and generally being dissatisfied with the government’s lethargic pace on environmental protection.
Environmentalists say they want to move beyond the status quo — our biggest enemy, the one that gave us inefficient homes, gas guzzling automobiles and clothing made in countries we can’t even locate on a map — but we still abide by it. We still get our power from coal. We still drive. We still buy clothes made in the Philippines.
In the presidential debates, global warming has hardly been discussed, and the one time I’ve seen, it was presented as a joke. Does this video really inspire people to think differently about the climate crisis?
The Democrats finally have the entire issue down to a few soundbites. Decrease emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Cap and trade. Moral imperative. Alternative energy.
But what are they going to do in their term?
By 2050, they will be long gone from any political office, and global warming solutions will probably still be in the discussion stages.
I never thought I would agree with anything Ron Paul said, and it disturbs me that I’m about to say this, but he’s right when he says that the EPA can be abolished. How can we have an agency that changes leaders with each new administration every four to eight years? How is that agency ever going to be effective? Especially when that leader is not a scientist, has no scientific training and is possibly a former exec from a big oil company?
This EPA has done nothing and has only prevented somewhat progressive state environmental action, such as the debate going on with California.
Problems with reaching the federal level were clearly illustrated at Focus the Nation. Dennis Moore gave the typical politician’s soundbite (we’re discussing, we’re debating…), and Nancy Boyda expanded beyond that, but not by much. They seemed much more distant and not as interested as officials at the state and local levels were (although that could have just been technology problems). Still, they too are stuck in the status quo, and no matter how many times we don’t flush the toilet and put Lysol in it instead (weird), that’s not going to cure global warming.
Obviously, I don’t have a solution, and am guilty myself, but I don’t think the environmental movement is moving anything right now. As Nordhaus and Shellenberger suggest, maybe we should fund green technologies ($300 billion worth!) to start the switch to a green economy.
A professor once gave an analogy to the status quo when she was driving on a highway way out in western Kansas. She was distracted and missed her exit and had to drive 60 miles out of her way because there were no other exits for at least 30 miles where she could turn around.
How long are we going to stay on Interstate Business As Usual? Does the planet have the time for us to waste time so that we make sure we follow procedure instead of simply doing what needs to be done?
And please tell me we aren’t driving a Hummer.
—Lauren Keith
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Filed under: Society + Media
Adam Werbach kind of reminds me of a fading star, an ex-boy wonder trying to reassert himself into a debate he no longer recognizes. I found his speech, while provocative, to be laced with irony and inconsistency. He laments environmentalists inability to forge a list of consistent values to oppose the right’s stranglehold on the “American narrative,” yet he calls for expansion of his own values which is a stranglehold in itself. He is arguing inclusiveness and divisiveness simultaneously. He’s urging environmentalists to create “interdependence” while asking forcefully for certain conservatives to “stay out of the movement.” I think Werbach is falling into the same kind of trap so many social movements fall into. They become about the movement itself rather than what the movement is about. Which, ironically, is the exact thing he’s hoping this speech will avoid. He’s essentially advocating a new American consciousness built on the eradiction of “-isms” while arguing it is time to “take over the Democratic party.” Progressivism is still an “-ism” and the way it becomes visible, at least in Werbach’s mind, is by never claiming neutrality on anything. He says “neutrality is death,” but how can you work toward compromise if your demeanor is so politically uncompromising that you neglect the nuance of differing values altogether? How will Werbach reach Rush Limbaugh if he’s already dismissed him outright? Consensus building and “finding shared values” are all nice things to talk about, but in reality people have very real and very different values and conceptions of progress. He uses a focus group to demonstrate the bubbly optimism that comes with this consensus, but as anyone with experience in strategic communications knows, focus groups so often suffer from a flawed design that simply reinforces what the designer expected to find rather than gleaning any type of new insight. While there are certainly things we can all agree on, I highly doubt the sort of militant overhaul of values that Werbach advocates can be accomplished through his bizarre “inclusiveness through divisiveness” method. As mentioned in this podcast: www.rusiriusradio.com – making a true difference on climate change issues could require a scary amount of coercion which is something I doubt Werbach is advocating.
-Vince Meserko
Filed under: Society + Media
Is environmentalism actually dead? I read the article about this idea of Environmentalism as dead and took the rest of the day think about whether this was true or not. My initial reaction was…well I don’t know. I felt like both arguments were made clear, but as I sat and pondered…I realized environmentalism is not over.
I believe there are just so many obstacles that are standing in our way. As Simran made clear to us during last week’s class, environmentalism (well actually topics such as climate change) have been around for a lot longer than I would have ever thought. This whole conflict of conservatives versus liberals seems to influence why people would think environmentalism is dead. As Adam Werbach, co-founder of the Apollo Alliance and formerly the youngest ever President of the Sierra Club states,
Anti-environmental conservatives control all three branches of the federal government.” In response to that comment: maybe the storms and droughts are increasing because those who are in power and can actually do something are doing nothing about it!
It’s a good thing that there is an election coming up. Not to sound harsh about who is currently in office, but it seems that our nation will not progress in terms of environmentalism without this passion to success.
On the contrary, Shellenberger and Nordhaus comment, “Environmentalists are in a culture war whether they like it or not. It’s a war over core values as Americans and over our vision for the future.” I would respond by saying it is not about the culture, but that our vision for the future of our entire world is at stake.
When even mentioning the word environmentalism, so many questions come to hand. How is environmentalism still thriving? How will it be possible for environmentalists to show progression? Is it possible to seek more support? How is it possible to defend such an argument held by Shellenberger and Nordhaus?
-Dena Hart
Filed under: Society + Media
When I was working on my bachelor’s degree just 10 years ago, I could walk through campus and pick out most of my Environmental Studies classmates from the crowd. They were the ones wearing hemp necklaces, worn out T-shirts, and Birkenstock’s – or no shoes at all. It’s sounds cliché, but everyone knew who the “environmentalists” were, and they kept to their own corner of campus. Having grown up in a rural community where “environmentalist” was practically a dirty word, I can’t say I ever quite fit that mold, but I knew I shared many of the same values of my “crunchier” classmates.
So when I read “The Death of Environmentalism” by Shellengerger and Nordhaus, it got me thinking about what kind of environmentalist I was. After examining my own views on global climate change, I decided that maybe I’m not an environmentalist at all.
But what does that make me, then? I know that I share the values of conservation that resonate in the works of Aldo Leopold, but it seems too simplistic to call myself a conservationist. I’m not a businessman or an economist, but climate change makes me think like one. Although it is difficult to put a price tag on the effects of climate change, the UN recently reported that it could cost as much as $20 trillion over the next 20 to 25 years to put our planet on the path to a sustainable future. It is also predicted that climate change will have a considerable impact on human health due to extreme temperatures, increased air pollution, and the proliferation of infectious deceases. In order to address climate change, I have to be aware of these issues, but I’m not a public health official.
I could go on and on explaining every aspect of our lives that is – or will some day – be affected by global climate change, but I think you get the point. Global climate change isn’t just an environmental issue, so doesn’t need just an environmental solution. Environmentalisms and its policy discussions still have their place, but that it is just part of the solution. As Carl Pope points out in his response to “The Death of Environmentalism”
Global warming is a more abstract, distant problem; the economic transformation required is bigger; it needs deeper, more robust, more sustained collaborations; it needs to be harnessed to a broader vision of a new economic order. There is more than enough hard work to go around.
I certainly see that happening around us here at KU. The environmentalists I knew 10 years ago are still out there, they are just wearing a new eco-couture. And they are not just in the corner by themselves discussing the works of Edward Abbey. They’ve got new friends. Last fall, I sat down with student leaders representing their peers in business, architecture, engineering, and environmental studies, as well as representatives of residential and religious organizations. We didn’t talk about who was or wasn’t an environmentalist, just that we all facing this challenge together and it is going to take us all to do something about it.
- Jeff
