3 rebuttals to Death of Environmentalism Is Environmentalism Dead, Or Are You Just Stupid? by Mike Roselle http://www.lowbagger.org/stupid.html Three articles have come out recently that have me really pissed off. They are: Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhauss Death of Environmentalism, which is a kindly worded invitation for us to commit suicide; Michael Milsteins’ article in the Oregonian asserting that we face the stinging realization that our influence is waning, the public is tuning away from our issues and our tactics stink, and that we have bad breath; and Bill Moyer’s flawed tome, There Is No Tomorrow.<> Shellenberger and Nordhaus argue that the environmental movement is dead and we need some new kinda something else, which they don’t much get into. Milstein tries to point how worthless we are and wasn’t it much better during the glory days of the Wilderness Act, The Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act. Moyers, on the other hand, seems to be saying that the Bible Thumpers have taken over the country and are trying to take over the world, so what the rest of us think doesn’t matter. <> All three pieces have one thing in common; we suck and we are losing. And they all have another thing in common. They are stupid. Please read Captain Paul Watson’s response elsewhere on this site if you need any further proof. The reason they are stupid is it ignores the one basic problem with human beings. People can hold two conflicting ideas in their heads at the same time. While one side of our heads watch the Discovery Channel and see dinosaurs, Neanderthals and black holes, the other side of our brains believes the Pope talks to God; we are the reincarnation of Cleopatra’ dress designer and that space aliens are buying up all the good Florida real estate. This is rooted in our separation of reality into the natural and the supernatural. Everybody believes in something weird that nobody else can either disprove or verify. Personally I believe there is a little bit of the real Elvis in every Elvis impersonator, but I can’t prove it. The point is I don’t really care what is going on the inside of someones brain. Thats how wars get started. <> Moyers seems to think that all of the Christians are apocalyptical, millennial universalists, and therefore don’t care about the environment. He sites the much-quoted James Watt line that Jesus will come back when we cut the last tree, and that that is the view of every conservative Christian, from Aunt Betty all the way up to the White House. Well, I had dinner with James Watt a few years back and he told me that he never said that. He considers himself a conservationist and is an avid river runner, and definitely not the wimp he was portrayed to be by the news media. His real belief is in property rights and making money of public resources, hardly a fringe ideology. Many heathen Democrats and more than a few godless liberals feel the same way. I think Moyers talking about Christians in this way is about as stupid as Bill O’Riley talking about how them Muslims think. <> The real problem with all of this thinking is that it is based on polling data. Polling data, of course, is like information, except that it is useless and expensive. If you ask a stupid question you will get a stupid answer. Ill just bet Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t spend a lot of time going over polling data in his segregated Alabama motel room trying to figure out what white people in the south thought about civil rights. Or whether white folks thought the Bible gave them the right to think they had privileges that black folks didn’t have. Do you think a focus group in Mississippi would have uncovered some important attitudes about what white people living in trailer parks think about Black Astronauts or interracial marriage? King understood that you could change people’s hearts only through struggle, sacrifice and conflict. And even though his work is hardly finished, he accomplished much more then anyone thought possible, including many of the largest civil rights groups. <> The other problem with all this hooey is that both Shellenberger and Milstein look at the bunch of suites we got in San Francisco and Washington DC and say, This is the movement. Its like the blind tourist who touches the elephants ass and decides the elephant is rather like stale doughnut. It is really the fault of all the Executive Directors and the Development Departments and the Mailing lists that is responsible for our seeming inability to get anything done anymore. You I have to be fair here. One of the reasons we have so many resources tied up in these centers of power and money is that we have to be there. Granted, it is much more difficult and much less glamorous getting these great laws and regulations enforced than it is to get new laws passed. Much of the time we are forced to play defense and spend much of our energy stopping bad things from happening. <> While it is easy to criticize the Big Ten groups for being an ineffective bureaucracy, or a bunch of wimps, if you will, we have to keep things in perspective. We are up against a big enemy and there has never been that many of us. We are the thin green line. But we cannot be as narrowly defined as Shellenberger and Milstein portray. Environmentalists come from a broad-based, multicultural movement from all over this planet, from the frozen tundra of Russia to the wild rainforests of Borneo. If these Dockers-wearing pinheads would get out of their offices and look around, they would know this. We are everywhere, but we cant be everywhere all at once. And we do win a lot of our battles, if we show up to fight them. <> I can hardly believe that it is big news that environmentalists are losing the fight to save the Earth and are in the political minority. And these pundits talk about it like we are just another organized special interest group, like people who suffer from psoriasis or were victimized by bad cable-television service. It’s really not our fault that most people are stupid. We didn’t make them stupid and the stupidest thing about all of this is that somehow its now our responsibility to change the course of human history simply because we are stupid enough to point out that we are wrecking this planet with our greed and self-centered behavior. And I don’t think it would be very hard to find a Baptist Minister, a Priest, a Rabbi, Imam or Rastafari who would agree with us on this. <> We cant blame the environmentalists and we cant blame the Christians, so how about placing the blame where it belongs; corporate power; corruption; poverty; an absence of the rule of law and the lack of justice. And, of course, the fact most people think when it comes to the Earth, that there is a free lunch, no matter which religion they belong to. You can’t blame Carl Pope for everything. If I took all the crap Ive read from these whining, sniveling nobodies seriously, Id stay in bed and drink Nyquil and watch NASCAR all day. <> To say that the environmental movement lacks vision, courage, decent strategies or effectiveness is just wrong. Collectively, we have made major changes in the way people think about our world. And we may even be on the cusp of a fundamental reordering of the way we act. The Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and even the Industrial Revolution were neither predicted by pollsters nor coordinated by Foundation Program Officers. Yet they changed the way the modern societies see themselves and obliterated many long cherished beliefs and practices. If I have faith in anything, its that people are more capable of reading the writing on the wall then what’s passing for writing on the environment these days. Sure we have a rats ass of a chance of winning our battles. That’s not news and neither is the fact that we will never stop trying. And if we lose, like my buddy Floyd says, Come back in a Million Years and no one will ever know we were here.<> ### Tune in next week as Mike Roselle delivers another well-deserved tongue lashing to a bunch of urban suits in Blue States who think they used to be environmentalists. Here in the Red States environmentalism is very much alive http://lowbagger.org/watson.html ============================== Report on the Death of Environmentalism is Merely Wishful Thinking By Paul Watson Captain Paul Watson's Response to Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus' essay "The Death of Environmentalism" Read Shellenberger and Nordhaus' article at, http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/little-doe/ photo Capt. Paul Watson, Founder of Sea Shepherd Voices of Authority In their essay on the Death of Environmentalism, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus state with great authority in their introduction that, "modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ecological crisis." It would be more correct to say that human society is no longer capable of dealing with what the authors believe is the world's most serious ecological crisis. In fact I cannot imagine any movement being capable of dealing with the enormity and complexity of global warming. It is also a case of too little too late. There are many environmental problems. The environmental movement has the capability of addressing some of these problems to a certain degree but certainly not all of them, and some not at all. I do not agree that global warming is the most serious ecological crisis. It is in fact a problem caused by the more serious ecological crisis of escalating human population growth and increasing rates of material consumption. In my opinion the most serious global ecological crisis is the escalating diminishment of biodiversity and the fact that the Earth will lose more species of plants and animals by 2050 then it has lost over the last sixty-five million years.Global warming will certainly be a major contributor to this mass global extinction but it is a problem caused by the first major threat and that is escalating human population growth. Rather than be critical of environmental movements, Nordhaus and Shellenberger should understand that the environmental organizations have done the best they can with the tools they have. After all it's pens, computers, cameras and meetings against drills, bulldozers, chainsaws, harpoons, tanks, and missiles. With respect to global warming, the environmental groups have pushed for more energy efficient cars, they have indeed worked on treaties like the Kyoto Protocol, and they have lobbied for legislation. In short they have done everything they can within the limitations allowed by society and the law to promote change. I notice they did not mention more radical activism, which the authors obviously consider unacceptable. They did not interview representatives of Earth First, Rainforest Action Network, Earth Island Institute or the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.Yet they state; "in their public campaigns, not one of America's environmental leaders is articulating a vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis. Instead they are promoting technical policy fixes like pollution controls and higher vehicle mileage standards - proposals that provide neither the popular inspiration nor the political alliances the community needs to deal with the problem." This is a very misleading statement. What the authors are saying is that in their opinion not one of the people they interviewed is articulating a vision.Twenty-five people does not a movement make.I would suggest that there are numerous individuals and groups that are indeed articulating a vision. David Foreman and the Wildlands Project is one example. Doug Tompkins and his land purchases are another example. Bob Hunter has specifically articulated a vision to address global warming in his book Thermageddon. I could name many more.The environmental movement is not the restricted shallowness of a mere 25 organizations. It is a global network of diverse organizations and activists. It is stronger today than it was 25 years ago and it grows in strength every day. The problems of global warming, overpopulation, destruction of bio-diversity and pollution are human societal generated problems. These problems were not created by the environmental movement but rather the environmental movement is merely a reaction to the problems. The authors of the paper seem to suggest that environmentalists are responsible for the predicament the world is in simply because they have failed to resolve the problem.The authors then state that "environmentalists are learning all the wrong lessons from Europe when they closely scrutinize the policies without giving much thought to the politics that made the policies possible. What the authors fail to realize is that what may be expected from more democratic European political systems will not necessarily work within the confines of the more restrictive democracy of a de facto two party system. In fact, both in Canada and the United States have indeed given much thought to the politics that made those policies possible and most "progressive" environmentalists in the United States have rudely dismissed the Green Party and Ralph Nader in favor of the crumbs of amused interest thrown to them by the Democrats. But having said this, lets return to Europe and the claim by the authors that the "achievements" made in Europe will reduce carbon emissions from anywhere to 50 percent to 80 percent over the next 50 years. Sounds good, but these reductions will still be insufficient to solve the problem and expanding human populations in Europe and elsewhere, especially in an increasingly industrialized China will simply negate them. In other words, even in Europe there may be the appearance of solving the problem but this does not translate into actually solving the problem. The authors then state "And yet there is nothing about the behavior of environmental groups, and nothing in our interviews with environmental leaders, that indicates that we as a community are ready to think differently about our work." My answer to that is there are plenty of people with diverse ideas, thinking differently about the issues and the problems and solutions. The point is that none of these people were interviewed by the authors, nor will they be interviewed because they are not recognized as legitimate spokespeople for what the authors believe the environmental movement to be. This entire paper is premised upon interviews with the most conservative, most entrenched and most bureaucratic environmental leaders and restricted to the United States.As such it is flawed from the beginning and has no grasp of the true complexity and the great diversity within the international and U.S. environmental movements. The authors also write as if the solution can be found by simply having these 25 environmental "leaders" rethink and restrategize their positions. The Importance of Individual Initiative and Action What I take most exception to is that Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus state that focusing on individual issues is counter-productive. It is my belief that most of the progress made in the environmental movement has been accomplished by individuals and groups focusing on specific objectives. It is the cumulative success of these objectives that makes a movement. For example, because of David Wingate, the Bermuda Storm Petrel was saved from extinction. This is a major accomplishment by one person. And there are the individual contributions of Jane Goodall, Birute Galdikas, Karen Silkwood, Chico Mendes and so many more over the years. This movement has a history of unique ideas, imaginative actions and strong individual leadership. Furthermore, the real strength of the environmental movement is not the large environmental organizations. It is the thousands of small organizations that form the true backbone of the movement. The environmental movement is not just the Sierra Club and the NRDC, it is also Earth First! and like it or not the Earth Liberation Army.There is in the world today, a growing, dynamic, diverse and strong environmental movement. That is the great strength of the movement - it's incredible diversity. Diversity in ideas, actions, strategies, tactics, and operations. The Laws of Ecology The problem is not in the movement. The problem is outside of the movement. The answer is plain and simply that there is a continual daily and global violation of the four basic laws of ecology. 1. The Law of Biodiversity 2. The Law of Interdependence 3. The Law of Finite Resources. 4. The Law of Species Precedence or that the survival of a species takes precedence over the individuals of another species. It is not fair, nor is it credible for Shellenberger and Nordhaus to conclude that the environmental movement is a failure based on the movement's inability to stop the hominid juggernaut from charging forward towards destruction.The problem is gargantuan whereas the movement is relatively small. And if history is a judge, the movement will always be relatively small. The reason for this lies in the reality of human evolutionary behavior. Specifically the following: . Humanity is anthropocentric and focuses on issues that are human oriented and therefore other species are relegated as secondary or dismissed as unimportant. And this is of course a violation of the law of interdependence and the law of Species Precedence. 2. Humanity has increased its numbers to dangerously high levels and is increasingly becoming more consumptive of global resources. 3. Escalating populations of humanity aspire to increased wealth and material possessions in a world of finite resources. 4. Escalating technological advances translate into greater resource extraction - not less. Therefore the rate of resource consumption is accelerated by technological advances. 5. It is the Tragedy of the Commons. Individuals in general will not change in an environmentally positive way because there is no individual motivation for such change within the context of the present socio-economic and political system that encourages competition, growth, and anthropocentric attitudes. 6. A majority of human beings suffer under mass forms of collective psychosis otherwise called religions where reality is abrogated for anthropocentrically oriented fantasies that justify and encourage the alienation of the human species from the ecology of the Earth. In other words, no amount of organizing, writing, lecturing, film-making, conferences, politicking, concerts, Hummer burnings or other activities will force, entice, convince or encourage the masses of people to abandon their big cars, large homes, high caloric intake, pleasures, drugs and entertainment.Nor will any movement convince those who do not have all or any of these things to no longer seek to attain them. The Oiliocratic Oligarchy and the Environmental Movement The human species has taken hunting gathering to ghastly excess. We have become hunter-gatherers extraordinaire and we will continue to adapt to diminishment until there is little left. Consider this: As human populations continue to grow and demand for resources increases, we are approaching the limits to natural resources like fossil fuels, fisheries, arable land, minerals and most importantly - water. Everyone knows this yet the human reaction is almost universally one of denial.All human societies are now fatally addicted to oil. You cannot deal with an addicted person with reason and logic. We will therefore continue to consume oil at whatever cost it will take to do so.This is why Americans and Iraqi's and Afghani's are dying right now. The media and government can bluster about patriotism and freedom and democracy but we all really know what it's about. Especially now that the government of the United States is a de facto oiliocratic oligarchy. In fact, media, government and corporations are so intertwined as to be one voice. Sure there are differences like left and right but liberal and conservative are just divisive descriptions for people who live relatively comparable life styles.So we can be certain that all fossil fuels will be exploited wherever and whenever they are located. Drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge is not a question of - will it happen but of when will it happen? The best environmental groups can ever hope to do is stall the process - but that oil will be taken, you can bank on it. And drilling will happen in Antarctica and the tar sands of Alberta will be exploited. There will not be one pocket of oil, gas, coal or tar sands on this planet that will not be tapped, drained and consumed.The oil corporations will take what they want using whatever political, economic, cultural or military leverage that is required. The environmental movement cannot and will not be able to stop them. If you don't believe me, ask yourself this question. Do you drive a car, fly in planes, travel on buses or trains or use any machinery that utilizes a petroleum product? If so and of course you do, then are you willing to no longer do any of the above? If your answer is yes, you will be defined as a member of a very insignificant and wacky minority and your choice of abstaining will not even be noticed. What we have in other words are 6.4 billion oil addicts and we all need our daily fix to keep on functioning.Which means of course that there is no strategy that can be developed to convince people to not consume oil and because the burning of oil is a major contributor to global warming, finding a solution is practically non-existent. Putting people first because Shellenberger and Nordhaus say so The writers Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus make many generalizations in their paper, again based on the fact that they only interviewed 25 elite people.For example they quite bluntly state, "Why, for instance, is a human- made phenomenon like global warming - which may kill hundreds of millions of human beings over the next century - considered "environmental"? Why are poverty and war not considered environmental problems while global warming is? What are the implications of framing global warming as an environmental problem - and handing off the responsibility for dealing with it to "environmentalists"? When did they decide that environmentalists do not regard poverty and war as environmental issues. I think most environmentalists would look on these two issues as environmental issues. As a co-founder of the Greenpeace Foundation, I can attest to the fact that we were first motivated by our opposition to nuclear testing and that whereas the green stands for the environmental concerns of the organization, the peace stands for it's opposition to war. Greenpeace was founded by environmentalists from the Sierra Club and by Quakers. Most wars are fought over territory and resources and the 21st Century will see numerous conflicts over resources. There are now wars for oil and the water wars are on the approaching horizon. Most environmentalists are well aware that human beings are a part of the environment and not separate from it. The problem is that most of society, those who are not environmentalists, tend to see humanity as separate and above the environment. So Shellenberger and Nordhaus are being unfair in accusing environmentalists of not being sensitive to the fact that people are of the environment and not apart from it. What they are actually suggesting is that environmentalists begin to identify more with people issues and move away from what they consider non-people issues. In other words, the environmental movement should put people first and trees and animals, creeks and salamanders second. But this of course would be contrary to the law of interdependence of species. I suspect that what Shellenberger and Nordhaus are really advocating is the death of environmentalism and replacement with humanism. They would like us to embrace politics, economics and culture to advance human concerns and human causes, to work with unions and progressive organizations to challenge the Republican right wingers. In other words, they are talking about redefining the environmental movement as if it was the Democratic Party. And lets face it, the environmental movement, especially the rising spectre of the Green Party is a threat and a distraction to the Democratic Party. They would like nothing better than to engulf and absorb environmentalists. But although some environmentalists may be left and blue and a few right and red, others are neither and have no use for political definitions. To be green is to reject right and left, and to be green is definitely not blue or red. Shellenberger and Nordhaus state that "Most environmentalists don't think of "the environment" as a mental category at all - they think of it as a real "thing" to be protected and defended. They think of themselves, literally, as representatives and defenders of this thing." Yes except, we also think of it in terms of self-defense also. When I protect a whale, I know I am not just defending the whale, I am also defending myself and the oceans. The law of interdependence recognizes that the "thing" out there includes the "thing" somewhere else. I don't think that Shellenberger or Nordhaus have any idea of how environmentalists view themselves and their relationship to the environment. They have their own perceptions and they have the views of the 25 people they interviewed and yet they have the audacity to describe how the entire movement thinks. It really is quite incredibly arrogant. Even more incredible, they then move on to say that environmentalists are narrow-minded and suggest that we believe for example when we talk about global warming it must be exclusively within the framework of the environment and not include the economy, industrial policy or health care. This suggests that environmentalists are simple minded and do not think outside of what they define as environmentalism. As any Greenpeacer, Earth Islander, Earth Firster or Sierra Clubber can attest, discussions on global warming do indeed incorporate the economy, industrial policy, health care and many other factors. I think that if Shellenberger or Nordhaus would bother to review past and current issues of the Earth Island Journal, the Earthfirst! Journal or Worldwatch amongst many other environmental publications they would find that social issues, specifically social justice issues are a large part of the coverage of these organizations. The fact is that environmental groups have been involved in the debate on world trade issues. Environmental groups have forged alliances with labor unions, political parties, social justice groups. In fact, environmental groups have done all of the things that Shellenberger and Nordhaus are advocating for them to do. In their paper, the authors state the following: Consider what would happen if we identified the obstacles as: 1. The radical right's control of all three branches of the US government. 2. Trade policies that undermine environmental protections. 3. Our failure to articulate an inspiring and positive vision. 4. Overpopulation. 5. The influence of money in American politics. 6. Our inability to craft legislative proposals that shape the debate around core American values. 7. Poverty. 8. Old assumptions about what the problem is and what it isn't. While these two were writing their paper, many environmental groups were or had previously considered each and every one of these points. They set these points down like they are some intellectual revelation the rest of us have not heard of, or considered before. They make the blanket accusation that environmentalists look on the problem as too much carbon in the atmosphere and the only viable solution is to lower carbon emissions. My response is to say the following: Consider what would happen if we identified the obstacles as: 1. Six point four billion people and growing. 2. Inability of people to stop wanting more consumer products. 3. Inability of people to stop manufacturing consumer products. 4. Inability of humanity to kick the oil addiction. 5. Inability of people to identify with the Earth and to discontinue beliefs in spiritual nonsense. 6. Inability of most people to recognize themselves as the problem. 7. Humanity's obsession with trivial problems and trivia in general. 8. The fact that most of humanity doesn't really care i.e. general apathy and certainly general non-involvement. Our Failure to Kick God's Almighty Ass In short, Shellenberger and Nordhaus are attempting to scape-goat environmentalists for the failures of humanity overall. Perhaps they are suggesting the Christian solution that environmentalism must die for the sins of humanity. In any case, the real failure is the inability of the human race to accept collective responsibility for the problems. Humanity is locked into a system of anthropocentric thought that dictates restrictions on solutions based only on the economic, political, cultural and social realities that have been deemed as acceptable by anthropocentric thought. It goes back to the old Earth First! saying of "subvert the dominant paradigm." As unrealistic as that might be, it is a requirement for real change. Recently I was in West Africa. In Dakar, I saw a dirty, chaotic, polluted city of two million people. Senegalese fishing is collapsing. The animals are disappearing. The water is becoming scarce. Garbage is tossed on the beaches for the tide to take away. Children were everywhere, many were begging. In a country where the average annual income is only $1600, people were still buying gas for $4 a gallon. They were buying cigarettes and beer, American running shoes and designer clothing. Their primary concern was not ecology, the preservation of wilderness, or the protection of animals, nor was it air or water pollution. Instead the primary concerns were consumerism and the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The plane that I left Dakar on was full. The airport was crowded. People pushing and shoving and feeling very proud of the fact that they have saved enough to afford the flight and expenses to get them to Mecca where they walk like mumbling robots around a stone in a square for a few days repeating the mindless rhetoric about God being great. Now this is the number one obstacle to change - this fanatical obsession with pie in the sky lunacy called religion. These Haj bound pilgrims have found their solution because poverty and pollution are unimportant as long as they believe in Allah. And the same holds true in the United States where the American God will demonstrate his love by allowing his followers to accumulate wealth without guilt, just so long as they vote to keep men from the abomination of sleeping with other men. So it is true that environmental movements have failed to address this major obstacle to addressing problems and few will ever dare to do so. This leaves the environmental movement in the frustrating position of attempting to educate people about problems that they see as secondary to their beliefs. How can we address over population when all of the world's dominant religions stress the importance of bringing more people into God's world? How can we address over population when all the world's dominant religions insist that humans are better than, superior to, and lords over all other species? I did not see anywhere in their paper where Shellenberger and Nordhaus suggest we tackle religion. But We Do Love Our American Automobiles They did make a big deal about cars and how environmentalist failed to kiss ass to the unions and wanted too much clean air and thus failed to compromise. In other words, environmentalists failed by advocating for higher standards instead of compromising with the auto workers. But the real problem is that it does not matter if cars are fuel efficient or not. All this energy for fuel efficiency will not solve the problem. The fact is that there is a finite amount of fossil fuel on the planet. All of this fossil fuel will be exploited as long as there is money to be made by doing so. Fuel efficient cars may buy a few more years of time but it will not stop the depletion of the resource. Besides, most fossil fuel is consumed by industry and agriculture, fishing and shipping. Collectively cars are also a major consumer but the difference between a Hummer and a Prius is relatively minor compared to fuel consumption in all areas. What fuel efficient cars do is to provide the market with a niche to appease the so called environmentally sensitive consumer. It's really more of a feel good product. And We Must Not Speak the Truth, it Upsets People A few years ago, I was invited to a panel in Great Britain to address the hazards faced by workers building Trident nuclear submarines. The union had invited environmentalists, health professionals, social justice advocates, lawyers etc, to find a solution to rising cancer rates amongst Trident workers. There was lots of rhetoric and solidarity talk and so forth and people were feeling good about the meeting although they did not even come close to offering a solution other than to advocate voting for the Labour Party. I was not very popular when I spoke up and made a simple suggestion. I said that the workers should quit working on Trident; that if one was going to work in an industrial ship-yard with nuclear materials, one should expect and certainly not be surprised if some people are afflicted because of their involvement. The solution it seemed to me was to not work on Trident. Of course the participants were appalled. The unions dismissed me as anti-worker. My fellow environmentalists dismissed me as insensitive to the unions. But the fact was that no one was confronting the reality that these "workers" were voluntarily involved in a hazardous occupation and furthermore they were producing a weapon of mass destruction designed to inflict death and destruction. This was of course an abstraction to them. They saw themselves as workers entitled to health coverage and entitled to a wage and the product of their labour was unimportant. In other words, they did not want environmentalists to point out reality to them, they wanted environmentalists to support what they wanted for their own purposes. I told them I had no intention of being their eco-whore and left the meeting. The greatest obstacle to environmentalists is articulating reality so that the public can understand what they mean. Environmentalists should not be incorporating fantasy into their explanations. Environmentalists should not take on the role of making people feel better about what they are doing. Environmentalists should be screaming reality into the faces of consumers and workers involved in environmentally destructive occupations. Greenpeace Did Present Another Alternative As a co-founder of Greenpeace, I believe that what transformed Greenpeace from a small local grass roots group in Vancouver Canada to a major international environmental organization today is that it was the first group to understand the nature of media in relation to environmentalism. We gave the media what the media wanted - drama, action, outrageous comments and controversy. We live in a media culture and Greenpeace was the first group to participate in this media culture whereas most other groups were outside as commentators occasionally.The problem with Greenpeace however is that they allowed bureaucracy to take over and this stifled imagination and the evolution of tactics forcing the organization into reruns for the last fifteen years. But Shellenberger and Nordhaus did not even mention Greenpeace in their paper. In fact, this is not a serious critique of environmentalism by environmentalists as it is a critique by liberal democrats of the environmental movement. Halleluiah, I have found the Lord. My favorite part of the paper is where they say: "Environmentalists need to tap into the creative worlds of myth-making, even religion, not to better sell narrow and technical policy proposals but rather to figure out who we are and who we need to be." I guess they figure that if religion has worked for the Republicans it can work for the Democrats. And unfortunately some environmental groups are falling for this. The Sierra Club has invited Barack Obama to be a keynote speaker at the Sierra Summit scheduled for September 2005. I am not personally impressed with Obama. I do not trust any politician who thanks God for his victory. And I have not heard him say anything new or enlightening. What I have heard is that he is half black, a good family man and he believes in God. That may mean something in some circles but not much in mine. Shellenberger and Nordhaus conclude their paper by asking: "Are existing environmental institutions up to the task of imagining the post-global warming world? Or do we now need a set of new institutions founded around a more expansive vision and set of values?" I don't think there are any human institutions, let alone environmental institutions, that are up to the task of imagining the post global world. So far the best reports on the consequences of global warming have been published by the Pentagon and it was not a pleasant scenario. Strangely the authors of the report seem to think that solutions can be found by abandoning "traditional" environmental approaches (I was not aware we had been around long enough to have traditional approaches) and embracing issues like the high cost of health care, R& D tax credits and the overall competitiveness of the American auto industry. I can't imagine how addressing any of these issues will convince people to stop driving cars, flying in airplanes and using electricity or having less children. I suspect that the real reason for this paper is to promote the death of environmentalism as a means to founding a new movement to be led of course by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus and nouveau Shellenberger and Nordhaus groupie and disciple Adam Werbach. Perhaps I am being cynical but I fail to see the point in publishing a declaration on the death of environmentalism as if it was some divine proclamation from some God. The environmental movement is far from dead. It is perhaps the most vibrant, complex, and important movement in the world today. It may not be winning every battle but the enemy is all powerful and well organized. It is the Jedi knights against the Empire for sure and numbers and victories do not a movement make. A movement is a force motivated by inspiration with objectives, sometimes defined and sometimes not. Its strength lies in ideas, dreams, imagination and courage. It grows like a cancer on the body of the opposition and by sheer stubbornness, persistence and determination it prevails or it is lanced from the body and fails. What a movement does not do is declare its own death and demand its own surrender. Environmentalism is Dead, Long Live Shellenberger and Nordhaus What this paper states therefore is that Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have resigned from the environmental movement and are seeking to make their way in life under some other definition, which if they are successful will make them wealthy, famous and whatever. But what they will not do is revolutionize the masses to act on global warming because global warming is not something that can be prevented since the consequences are now upon us and will continue to manifest themselves in the form of climate change, increased storms, rising sea-levels and all sorts of as yet unimagined ways. The environmental movement can only find ways for people to cope with the consequences of the problem. To stop global warming now is all but impossible. It would require the complete voluntary global shut-down of humanity's economic systems and that will not happen. Thermageddon In his book Thermageddon, Robert Hunter predicts that the point of no return on global warming will be reached by 2030. By then he says, the Arctic Ice cap will be on the verge of vanishing entirely during the summer, which means its surface will change from white to black, making it absorb heat instead of reflecting it, (it is actually happening now), and thus altering the planet's albedo. Beyond the moment of final polar dissolution argues Hunter, there will be absolutely nothing we can do to stop or reverse the transformation set in motion. He then states that the consequences will be a temperature-induced Gtterdmmerung so sweeping and destructive that there are presently no words to describe it. I agree with Hunter on everything but the time frame. Thirty years may be his time frame for averting the disaster but that presumes that humanity will actually address the problem. As we mainline the black gold into our societal arteries, we are literally riding much too high and fast to dwell on the consequences. "Hey man, I'm on a high, don't be a bummer." Not even the ultra-liberals will support the shutting down of the global petroleum industry. That just is not going to happen. Hunter envisions a world global energy revolution but in a world where more and more people are retreating into cocoons of religious ignorance and oil industries actually control the most powerful government in the world, such a revolution is not going to happen. Change can only be expected after the full force of the disaster has been experienced. The recent Tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean will be considered a picnic in comparison to the climate induced disasters that await us over the next few decades. But I am one of those environmental wackos that Shellenberger and Nordhaus dismiss as environmental Cassandras. Never mind the fact that Cassandra for all her doom and gloom predictions, was proven to have been right on the mark. We Deserve a Break Today so Give us a Shellenburger and Nordhaus Happy Meal Shellenberger and Nordhaus want to give us happy meals wrapped up in positive, pretty wrappings. They want to repackage environmentalism as something more enticing to the consumer. In other words they want to sell a feel good product and not risk discouraging the consumer. Because this is what they are in fact doing - catering to the consumer. For large environmental organizations, that is what people and specifically their memberships are. They are clients. They give money and in return they want a product. Some want to see results, most just want to feel good about themselves as concerned advocates for a better environment. Environmental groups solicit support through direct mail and advertising and then work to hold onto their clients by promises, merchandising, and positive reinforcement of their product. And the product is the illusion of solving environmental problems. Shellenberger and Nordhaus simply want to repackage the illusion into a non- environmental more inclusive social activism approach. Nothing very revolutionary here, just changing the window dressing. They are seeking foundation funding for their "new" and "revolutionary" manifesto of post environmentalism. And they will probably get funding. I will not be surprised. People love to try new diets, new fads, new ideas and new illusions. Meanwhile at the top of the world the hole in the ice gets larger every year. At the bottom of the world, ice is shifting. In the oceans currents are changing course. Winds are moving in new directions. Storms are appearing where storms were not a problem before like last year's hurricane in Southern Brazil. In fact the nightly news reports of late look like previews for the recent move, The Day After Tomorrow. The more things stay the same, the more things change. Captain Paul Watson is the Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, serves as National Director on the Sierra Club, and was a Co-Founder of Greenpeace International. Currently Watson is captaining his ship north to do his part for the seals. He has not yet given up on the movement. www.seashepherd.org =============================== Diagnosing the Green Giant Debate on the environmental movement's health raises the Pythonesque question, Is the creature resting? Stunned? Or has it joined the Choir Invisible? By Barry Bergman, Public Affairs | 23 February 2005 (Jonathan King photo) If last week's lively Mulford Hall debate on "The Death of Environmentalism" proved anything, it was the proposition that nothing gets the blood racing like reading one's own obituary. Just such vascular stimulation, in fact, may well lie at the heart of an essay bearing that name, which was subtitled "Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World" and which has earned a measure of notoriety within, and to some extent beyond, activist circles. The manifesto, published by a pair of thirty-something movement fixtures in the fall, proclaimed that modern environmentalism has devolved into "just another special interest" that "is no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ecological crisis." To read the original essay, "The Death of Environmentalism," Carl Pope's response, and other related materials,see Grist magazine. Not surprisingly, the treatise has roiled the mainstream green establishment, and - largely on the strength of an irresistible food-fight story line - bushwhacked its way into media ranging from the backwoods of the online Grist to the prime real estate of The New York Times. At Berkeley, as elsewhere, the paper's subtext- that is, the authors' motives for writing it in the first place - loomed as large as its message of green extinction. "I don't think any of you would be here if we'd called it something else," Michael Shellenberger, one of its authors, candidly told the standing-room-only crowd of 200-plus on Wednesday, Feb. 16. By coincidence, that was the day the Kyoto treaty on global warming took effect, despite the refusal of the United States to join most of the rest of the industrialized world in promising to reduce heat-trapping carbon-dioxide emissions. Shellenberger, a veteran media consultant, and his co-author, pollster and former Cal undergrad Ted Nordhaus, addressed both text and subtext during their campus appearance. Billed as "the first debate between the essay's authors and environmental scientists," the 90-minute panel discussion featured professors John Harte and Richard Norgaard, both with the university's Energy and Resources Group, and Michel Gelobter, an ERG alum who now heads Redefining Progress, a nonprofit that promotes environmental sustainability. Borrowing heavily from Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff's acclaimed analysis of progressives' failures, "The Death of Environmentalism" contends that "the environmental movement's foundational concepts, its method for framing legislative proposals, and its very institutions are outmoded." Environmentalists, the authors assert, "are in a culture war whether we like it or not. It's a war over our core values as Americans and over our vision for the future, and it won't be won by appealing to the rational consideration of our collective self-interest." Shellenberger and Nordhaus offer no specific policy recommendations. They do, however, offer up their own "New Apollo Project" an effort, they say, "aimed at freeing the U.S. from oil and creating millions of good new jobs over 10 years" as a less wonkish, more inspirational model for winning Americans to the cause. In the view of Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, the authors of the 36-page death notice had less lofty aims than reviving a sleeping giant. Noting that the paper was first delivered to environmental grantmakers, Pope wrote in a widely circulated rejoinder to "Death..." that "it will be hard for many readers to avoid the suspicion that the not-so-hidden message was 'fund us instead.'" "Boldness and hubris are closely related," declared Pope, whose pointed response to the pamphlet, like Brer Rabbit's assault on the Tar Baby, could be scored, in part, as a tactical victory for its creators. His own essay, in the form of a letter to those same grantmakers, calls the original paper's research "shoddy," its arguments "internally contradictory," and its conclusions "fundamentally flawed." Similar objections, and some new ones, were leveled Wednesday. Harte, who conducts research into the ecological impacts of climate change, objected primarily to the first half of the essay, "Environmentalism as a Special Interest." That section, in Harte's assessment, was "deficient in its logic" and "laden with what I would call postmodern gibberish" and "overly broad generalizations" about environmentalists. The authors, he added, provided "no analysis" of why Europe is moving aggressively to address global warming, while the United States is dragging its heels. Norgaard took a dimmer view. "I didn't like Part 1 or Part 2," he said, adding that he found the entire critique "quite shallow." Norgaard, an "ecological economist," faulted the paper's authors for, among other things, bemoaning the movement's alleged failure to frame the issue in moral terms while relying heavily on polling data and focus groups in support of their arguments. Gelobter was a bit more charitable, observing that "as a movement-building piece," at least, "the report has a lot going for it." Nonetheless, he was sharply critical of the authors' "denial" of activists who have gone before, and their refusal to build on earlier movement successes. "They are obsessed in their piece with ancestors," he said, "the better to kill them, I think." Gelobter also took issue with the authors' methodology, which focused on interviews with some two dozen environmentalists from large, mainstream organizations. But those leaders, he said, do not reflect the full spectrum of environmental activists. A politics smaller than the cause? When the authors disparaged the environmental-justice movement which tends to be more grassroots-based and racially diverse than most mainstream groups, and seeks to build coalitions around issues of health, racism, and poverty - Gelobter went on the attack. "Wow, something I can really disagree with. Jeez Louise: Is Bjorn Lonborg in the house?" he asked, referring to the contrarian author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. "Dick Cheney, maybe?" The dismissal of efforts to broaden the movement's base, he said, "makes suspect the entire agenda of your piece." Nordhaus, however, insisted on the need to "challenge the category of environmentalism," asserting that "by hewing to that category so slavishly, by failing to challenge it, [the movement] constructed a politics that was in fact smaller than environmentalism, rather than larger." Shellenberger, picking up the theme, condemned "what we call complaint-based activism," calling instead for "a movement that's driven by vision and values." He noted that Carly Fiorina, the just-deposed CEO of Hewlett-Packard, had been fired "after six years of a pretty mixed record," whereas "none of the environmental leaders have been fired after 20 or 30 years of a terrible record. So what the hell?" Dubbing environmentalism "a movement in complete disarray," Shellenberger declared, "The moral and intellectual framework of environmentalism is dying, and it needs to die so that something more powerful and expansive can be born that carries the values that animate our lives and our policies forward." Nordhaus echoed his partner's call for a movement that is "transformational," and added, "If we had to be divisive to say that, so be it." They wrote the piece, he acknowledged, "with the intention of being provocative, perhaps even divisive." And though one observer likened the often-fractious debate to "the Monty Python episode about whether the parrot is dead or not," they seemed to have succeeded wildly on both counts.