When
environmentalists are
writing tracts like
"The Death of
Environmentalism,"
you know the movement is
in deep trouble.
That
essay by two young
environmentalists has
been whirling around the
Internet since last
fall, provoking a civil
war among tree-huggers
for its assertion that
"modern
environmentalism, with
all of its unexamined
assumptions, outdated
concepts and exhausted
strategies, must die so
that something new can
live." Sadly, the
authors, Michael
Shellenberger and Ted
Nordhaus, are right.
The
U.S. environmental
movement is unable to
win on even its very top
priorities, even though
it has the advantage of
mostly being right. Oil
drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge
may be approved soon,
and there's been no
progress whatsoever in
the U.S. on what may be
the single most
important issue to Earth
in the long run: climate
change.
The
fundamental problem, as
I see it, is that
environmental groups are
too often alarmists.
They have an awful track
record, so they've lost
credibility with the
public. Some do great
work, but others can be
the left's equivalents
of the neocons: brimming
with moral clarity and
ideological zeal, but
empty of nuance.
(Industry has also hyped
risks with wildly
exaggerated warnings
that environmental
protections will entail
a terrible economic
cost.)
"The
Death of
Environmentalism"
resonated with me. I was
once an environmental
groupie, and I still
share the movement's
broad aims, but I'm now
skeptical of the
movement's "I Have
a Nightmare"
speeches.
In the
1970's, the
environmental movement
was convinced that the
Alaska oil pipeline
would devastate the
Central Arctic caribou
herd. Since then, it has
quintupled.
When I
first began to worry
about climate change,
global cooling and
nuclear winter seemed
the main risks. As
Newsweek said in 1975:
"Meteorologists
disagree about the cause
and extent of the
cooling trend ... but
they are almost
unanimous in the view
that the trend will
reduce agricultural
productivity for the
rest of the
century."
This
record should teach
environmentalists some
humility. The problems
are real, but so is the
uncertainty.
Environmentalists were
right about DDT's threat
to bald eagles, for
example, but blocking
all spraying in the
third world has led to
hundreds of thousands of
malaria deaths.
Likewise,
environmentalists were
right to warn about
population pressures,
but they overestimated
wildly. Paul Ehrlich
warned in "The
Population Bomb"
that "the battle to
feed humanity is over.
... Hundreds of millions
of people are going to
starve to death."
On my bookshelf is an
even earlier book,
"Too Many
Asians," with a
photo of a mass of
Indians on the cover.
The book warns that the
threat from relentlessly
multiplying Asians is
"even more grave
than that of nuclear
warfare."
Jared
Diamond, author of the
fascinating new book
"Collapse,"
which shows how some
civilizations in effect
committed suicide by
plundering their
environments, says false
alarms aren't a bad
thing. Professor Diamond
argues that if we accept
false alarms for fires,
then why not for the
health of our planet?
But environmental alarms
have been screeching for
so long that, like car
alarms, they are now
just an irritating
background noise.
At one
level, we're all
environmentalists now.
The Pew Research Center
found that more than
three-quarters of
Americans agree that
"this country
should do whatever it
takes to protect the
environment." Yet
support for the
environment is coupled
with a suspicion of
environmental groups.
"The Death of
Environmentalism"
notes that a poll in
2000 found that 41
percent of Americans
considered environmental
activists to be
"extremists."
There are many sensible
environmentalists, of
course, but overzealous
ones have tarred the
entire field.
The
loss of credibility is
tragic because
reasonable
environmentalists -
without alarmism or
exaggerations - are
urgently needed.
Given
the uncertainties and
trade-offs, priority
should go to avoiding
environmental damage
that is irreversible,
like extinctions,
climate change and loss
of wilderness. And
irreversible changes are
precisely what are at
stake with the Bush
administration's plans
to drill in the Arctic
wildlife refuge, to
allow roads in virgin
wilderness and to do
essentially nothing on
global warming. That's
an agenda that will
disgrace us before our
grandchildren.
So
it's critical to have a
credible, nuanced,
highly respected
environmental movement.
And right now, I'm
afraid we don't have
one.
E-mail:
nicholas@nytimes.com