From the Ground Up

A Blueprint for Environmental Progressives

BY JAMES DEBOER

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Illustration by Hilary Falb
Environmental family

IN OCTOBER OF LAST YEAR, two environmentalists, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, part of a renewable energy initiative called The Apollo Alliance, presented a paper called "The Death of Environmentalism" to the Environmental Grantmakers Association. "The Death of Environmentalism" was a critique of the environmental movement's response to a long series of defeats. As the authors correctly pinpointed, the important question for contemporary environmentalists to ask is not how to effect policy change, but how to alter the underlying popular perceptions of environmental issues. The paper begins with a brief survey of the environmental movement, takes a look at the stagnation of efforts against global warming, and tries to figure out why the environmental movement does not seem to be gaining traction.

One big problem has been that environmentalists see the environment as something separate from other aspects of human activity. The phrase "Protect the Environment" implies that there is an environment that's out there, disconnected from the everyday lives of everyday people. If environmental activists do recognize that the environment is always present and all around us, they nonetheless talk about environmental destruction as if it were distinct from the human effects that come from environmental destruction. Represented in this kind of language, the environment loses meaning to most Americans; people are concerned about global warming, yet it is not an issue compelling enough that they call their senators or rank it as their first priority because it does not seem to affect them.

Gaia And The Uaw

Environmentalists have not effectively connected the dots between the environment and other social justice movements, nor have they declared the environment to be nothing other than the sum of several interrelated social justice movements. Shellenberg and Nordhaus lament how environmentalists retreated into crafting specific policy solutions that ignored the fundamental questions of how to eliminate carbon from our energy production, focusing instead on emissions cap trading and compact fluorescent light bulbs. They argue that these policy-oriented changes have been and continue to be successful up to a point; they have been harder and harder to achieve in recent years, precisely because they are neither far-reaching nor motivational.

The core failure of the environmental movement has been its focus on such policy initiatives without further consideration of other factors like ideology and politics. Environmentalists must recognize that politicians respond mostly to money and constituent pressures, not to lofty ideals. Without connecting environmental issues to the legislators' own backgrounds and political interests, and without energizing voters, a policy-oriented approach has no chance at success.

Much of Schellenberg and Nordhaus' analysis seems dead on. The way to make these connections and rally widespread support will be to build alliances. Lasting alliances that go beyond simple tit-for-tat arrangements will enable environmental progressives to fight at the root of environmental destruction and social injustice. If environmentalists worked with union groups towards universal single-payer health care, for example, and ways to keep high-paying jobs stateside, then the workers that these groups represent might be more willing to think seriously about how to prevent global warming. If the wage structure were more equitable, more people could afford to use renewable energy in their own homes.

This goes beyond temporary arrangements. It involves more than going after specific demographics through targeted appeals, as environmentalists have done in the past. Environmentalists must think of themselves not just as environmentalists but also as worker's-rights advocates and social justice fighters.

By connecting the progress of global warming to trade policies that undermine environmental protections, overconsumption, the influence of money in American politics, and poverty, the authors provide a new set of goals for environmentalists. If we continue to define global warming as merely an energy consumption issue, rather than the product of a system that is fundamentally flawed, any solution to the problem will invariably be topical. Maybe today we reduce the impact of global warming a little, but if environmentalists do not address the other issues that have given birth to global warming then they are setting themselves up for more trouble later on.

While some environmentalists, like Adam Werbach, the former Sierra Club president, have embraced these necessary reforms, others adamantly oppose them. Phil Clapp of National Environmental Trust, Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a set of young environmental leaders all dismissed Shellenberger and Nordhaus. Carl Pope, current Sierra Club director, wrote the longest and perhaps most negative response, claiming that the environmental movement was actually alive and kicking and didn't need any advice. Pope then impeached the motives of Shellenberger and Nordhaus, finding it suspicious that they should present their paper to grantmakers before anyone else, and implying that they were merely fishing for funding for their own organization.

The viciousness of this implication can probably be attributed to the frustration that Pope and many others feel. Most environmental organizations do not have the budgets they need to seek the adequate enforcement of what environment protections already exist, let alone go on the offense by seeking new regulations and fighting for things like health care or campaign finance reform. At the same time, taking a moment to re-evaluate one's progress and aspirations is a very important process for every movement.

To Infinity And Beyond

The key to spurring more public interest in the environment lies in working towards a shift in American culture. Environmentalists should look at their struggle as a question of not only preserving the physical environment, but also of changing the way that people think about the world. Already the recent conference on global warming by the National Association of Evangelicals shows that not all right-wingers dismiss environmental issues and that maybe some of the work of environmentalists over the past decades is succeeding. The best way to follow up on this victory -and I think environmentalists must consider it a victory-will be to talk to more people about the relevance of climate change in more parts of the country. The wrong thing to do would be to dismiss it and continue pressing for minor handouts.

Progress will be possible through changing the way we present our cases from remote political issues to matters of personal responsibility and respect. Environmentalists need to connect with as many people as possible. They need to change the way Americans think. In organizing people in a struggle for one specific environmental campaign, environmentalists should make the people they talk with aware of the greater injustices and contexts for these injustices, and draw the connections between the arrogance of the ruling class as it affects the environment, and as it affects social justice and democracy.

By working to change the way that people think about the environment and about each other, through organizations and on the personal level, progressives can achieve real and lasting change.

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James deBoer B'05 is jolly, green, but no giant

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