The Maturity of the Environmental Movement

Before I start, I must first of all claim that I have no real first hand knowledge of the environmental movement. This blog entry is merely an expression of my observations and experiences. I have no credentials to back any of my statements beyond the fact that I have lived in this contemporary North American culture since the early 1980s. That in mind, please remember that this is all an expression of opinion.

Why do I prefix my blog entry with a badly formed disclaimer? It is my observation that discussions about environmental protection and policy arouse strong emotions. Readers may get the wrong impression of me as if I am some sort of authority on the subject, which I am not.

First of all, I would like to say that I grew up with environmentalism. We all did, at least those in my generation. We were socialised in school to care about issues like "the rainforest", ozone depletion, recycling, and other major environmental causes. In a sense, we are all environmentalists now, at least by the standards of where the movement was when I was a child. Now, I doubt that I can claim to be an environmentalist, and that does bother me. To be branded as not an environmentalist implies that I do not care about the environment, and that I must be a stooge of the coporate mainstream. It doesn't help that I'm studying business administration. For the record though, I do care about the environment and environmental issues, but I'm no hardcore firebrand corporate basher.

Why am I bringing up this issue? Well, tonight I watched en episode of South Park (don't laugh, I'm serious) that caricatured the environmental movement in several humourous, and perhaps unjustified ways. You can read the script of the episode here (don't forget to say no to the nasty software download). In celebration of Earth Day, the Earth Day Brainwashing Organisation is hosting the Earth Day Brainwashing Festival in South Park. The organisers were forcing the grade 4 class to help set up the venue for the festival. Later to scare Kyle, Cartman, Stan and Kenny into following on what they had promised to do, the organisers started hacking off Kenny's limbs with a cleaver. In my opinion, this was going a bit far. In any case, the environmental movement is caricatured in the episode as brainwashing people, exploiting children to achieve their ends, and valuing the environment over human life. On the surface, there is no justification for this, though I believe this demonstrates something about environmentalism. The movement has matured. People are now more willing to criticise the movement, though most such critics remain at the fringes, or are part of right-wing political parties. Even then, many people on the right wing have accepted the core idea that the environment in which we live cannot be taken for granted. Does the environmental brainwash? Well no more so than any other lobbying group that runs publicity in the media. Does the environmental movement emxploit children? Well, exploiting children as manual labour is going a bit far, but much of the publicity (some might call propaganda) about environmentalism is tailored for children. The fact is that many of us grew up being socialised to think a certain way on environmental issues. Does the environmental movement value the environment over human life? That's debatable, though in my opinion, some environmentalists value the environment over human welfare (from an ecnonomics perspective).

I don't know the history of the environmental movement. In my opinion though, it has achieved a certain level of maturity. I believe that the environmental movement, as we know it today was born in the 1960s. Since then it has moved from a fringe movement to mainstream. Despite claims by its adherents to the contrary, environmentalism is mainstream, and it has matured. In some ways, environmentalism is like a religion, though much less centralised. The aim of environmentalism is the salvation of the earth, and its inhabitants. The Christianity is the salvation of humanity. Environmentalism can be dogmatic, though no central authority dictates what the environmental doctrine is. Environmental dogma is developed by the researchers that study environmental science. Religious dogma has tended to be developed by researchers that study theology. Environmentalists use guilt to change people's behaviour and achieve the aims of the environmental movement. Some may accuse the Catholic church of the same thing. Proponents of environmentalism have demonstrated the will to punish members of the movement that do not follow the dogma (such as Bjorn Lomborg, writer of The Sceptical Environmentalist). Do I even need to mention excommunication?

While the comparison between environmentalism and religion is amusing, it doesn't really demonstrate the maturity of the environmental movement. Let me try to set out some anecdotal evidence. The focus of environmentalism when I was in grade school seemed to be preservation. We needed to save the pandas, the whales, the white rhino, the elephants, and all the other highly visible animal species. There was also a focus on conservation of resources such as water, minerals, forests, and energy. This led to another focus: pollution reduction. Today, the focus is no just on individual species, but the entire biomass and its diversity. The focus on conservation and pollution reduction still holds, but new foci have been added such as the push to reduce carbon emissions, and sustainable development. This doesn't really demonstrate maturity, but it does show that the scope of the movement has increased from species-specific action to a more wholistic view of the entire biomass. Is the movement suffering from inertia though? If that were true, then the movement would definately be mature. Inertia (roughly speaking) is a state of an organisation in which decisions tend to follow those made historically with little deviation, and is demonstrated by an inability to innovate. This is difficult to prove. I'm afraid that I do not know enough about the environmental movement to make this case. I would like to point out a divergence in the movement though. A core group of environmentalists continues as always with the same anti-business, anti-industrial, historical view. Others are exploring the possibilities of working with business to achieve what environmental protection they can. In some ways this is similar to the split between communists and social democrats. The social democrats couldn't wait for some messianic revolution, and took to promulgating their policies through the ballot-box. This new wing of the environmental movement involves not just scientists and activists, but also economists and policy experts. I think of these people more as resource and environment managers. They seek to find out what policies by governments and businesses can ensure proper management of the environment.

I believe another issue with regards to the maturity of the movement is that now has a number of victories under its belt. Unfortunately, these tend to be overlooked as the focus is placed on unresolved environmental issues. Furthermore, old views tend to continue to be expressed long after the issue has passed. For example, the Montreal Accord of 1987 has signed by 43 countries, and its aim was to eliminate the use of Ozone-depleting CFCs. 16 years later, we see that this was pretty much a success. Despite lingering misinformation to the contrary, CFCs have largely disappeared as an issue. CFCs are no longer suppsed to be used in aerosol containers, air conditioners or refridgeration units. The whole in the ozone layer, to the best of my knowledge is slowly getting smaller. On a much smaller scale, environmentalists successfuly pushed for polution reduction in North America's great lakes. I don't know the actual state of affairs, but as far as I know, the conditions in the great lakes have been imrpoving. I think that PCB, dioxin and heavy metal concentration levels have been dropping. The issue of acid rain has diminished as it has been (as far as I know) proven to be less harmful than it was feared. The acidification of northern Ontario's lakes has been combatted.

So what is the future of the environmental movement? This is all just speculation, but since I believe that the movement has matured, I expect some amount of inertia. The activists will continue their present tactics for better of for worse. Perhaps some discreditation will come their way (if that has not already happened. In any case, I expect that environmenal issues, some of them at least, will become more open for debate, and less black ane white as many are placed now. I'm glad that there has been debate about the Kyoto Protocol. While agitation will continue, energy production will slowly become more efficient. Industrial processes will be tweaked, and perhaps redesigned to reduce waste. Ultimately, technology and increased efficiency will ensure salvation from climate change, not reducing production (and human welfare by extension). In the rush to achieve a hydrogen society (a pipe dream perhaps), it is important to not ignore incremental changes with regards to internal combustion. Increasing fuel efficiency is an important step. Dreamers may think that fuel cells can be adopted overnight, but that is not true. The right incentives must be available to coax people into the right decision. Also, expect big oil, to remain big oil. Hydrogen will probably be more easily and cheaply acquired from hydrocarbons than solar-powered electrolysis. That said, expect dirty energy to linger. Coal will continue to be important as new technology makes it cleaner. As fewer people use coal, the price will fall, which will keep it competitive. I guess I can sum it all up by saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Whew! There are many unresolved issues. Like everything else I say, I hope to revisit this.
Comments? E-mail me at icy_caina@nospamhere.yahoo.ca (remove nospamhere if you want to reach me).