A couple of quick prefatory remarks -- several readers interpreted my earlier posting as an attack on liberalism. That was not my intent at all: While I am not a liberal, as the saying goes, "Some/most of my best friends are liberals." The only goal of the previous posting, and the one that follows, is to suggest the harm that comes from automatically coupling liberalism with environmentalism.
In my previous post, I discussed our movement's international problems. But back in America, we're not doing much better. When the American environmental movement began, Lake Erie was on fire, the bald eagle was on the verge of extinction, and L.A. was choking on its own smog. When environmental regulations seemed to reduce these problems, the public was all for them. But as regulations multiplied, environmentalism became associated in many minds with costly regulatory expenditures, failed Superfund clean-ups, and lots of bureaucratic red tape. Big government enviroliberalism took over a grassroots movement.
Why should liberalism be the Siamese twin of environmentalism? If I am pro-life, against affirmative action, or for private accounts in Social Security, does that mean I don't care about protecting forest ecosystems or saving blue whales?
What would our movement look like if there were real attempts to bring in pro-environment conservatives or libertarians -- if we put them on our organizing committees or in our policy groups? In general, our movement's far-left viewpoint has pushed us out of the mainstream and away from our own traditions and history. In World War II, significant numbers of Sierra Club leaders utilized their backcountry experience to join the Army's elite 10th Mountain Division. It's hard to imagine too many Sierra Clubbers joining today's 10th Mountain Division to search for Bin Laden in Tora Bora.
How might our movement change if we had a real dialogue with those who care about the environment but have different policy prescriptions or worldviews than ours? As regards alliances, the environmental community should practice the principal rule of statecraft: "No friends or enemies, only interests."
I like many things about the much-discussed Apollo Alliance, but fundamentally it's the same tired collection of Democratic Party fronts -- civil rights groups, unions, and other liberal organizations. How does that help us advance legislation during an era of Republican dominance? When you are talking about spending $300 billion, you ought to be able to line up a lot of businesses behind your vision. But the current, publicly announced business and Republican backing for the Apollo Alliance is very thin.
I'd be the last person to deny the real environmental shortcomings of this administration, but we certainly haven't been very good at finding areas to meet them halfway. We immediately dismiss reform of New Source Review (NSR), though Harvard environmental economist Robert Stavins and Howard Gruenspecht of Resources for the Future recently wrote that NSR currently "retards environmental progress and wastes resources." And we rake Bush over the coals on Kyoto, even though we wouldn't have ratified it under Gore/Kerry either. Despite the difficult operating environment, there is much we could have done. As the saying goes, we never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Meanwhile, many environmentalists' contempt for economics is exceeded only by their ignorance thereof. Hostility to cost-benefit analyses of our policy proposals makes many non-environmentalist policymakers wonder what our ultimate goals are.
Some regulations on hazardous waste disposal, for example, are estimated to cost billions of dollars per life saved -- hardly a good use of society's limited resources. It is true that cost-benefit analysis is an inexact science, but so is climatology -- and I don't see too many environmentalists saying we shouldn't pay attention to global warming science because the numbers aren't perfect.
Our supreme self-confidence in our own righteousness is particularly unfortunate given that our past record is far from spotless. Prominent environmentalists were wrong on world starvation, wrong on resource prices, wrong when they said oceans would be fished out by the early 1980s, wrong to link socialism with cleaner environments, and wrong on global cooling fears in the 1970s.
And now we're fighting sensible Endangered Species Act reform, and dangerously simplistic on the complex issues like genetically modified foods. We've pushed Kyoto and mercilessly attacked its opponents despite the private acknowledgement of many environmentalists and policy analysts that Kyoto itself is not going to do us much good. At the same time, if someone says nuclear or "clean coal" (the latter being probably the most important "alternative energy" investment we could make), we start sharpening our knives.
I don't think that's the best strategy for environmentalism to win hearts and minds.
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Comments
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bhurley Posted 1:21 am
13 Jun 2005
Sure, it would be a better world if liberal environmentalists could be inclusive and open-minded enough to welcome conservative environmentalists to the fold, but I have my doubts.
Most "isms," including environmentalism, tend to attract absolutists who see the world in black and white: Corporations are evil, conservatives are heartless souls driven only by short-term self-interest, etc., we know the drill. Fortunately not all liberal environmentalists meet this description, but plenty of them do, and I doubt those people are going to drop their predjudices or listen to reasoned arguments anytime soon.
What you need to do is find people who truly care about the environment, people for whom the end (environmental protection) is more important than the means, and who aren't so wedded to their ideologies that they can't compromise or see things in shades of grey.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:47 am
13 Jun 2005
You claim we must become practical, there are only interests, not opponents.
So "The Apollo Project" is too radical for you? 10% of government energy purchase in renewables by 2015?
You are on "our" side, eyhh?
Yep, like Dick morris was on Clinton's side.
Neoconman environmentalism is a sham, as are it's fake environmentalists. Nuclear power and fossil fuel industries are it's clients plain and simple, anything else is sophistry.
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callisto Posted 2:39 am
13 Jun 2005
Your Sierra Club link in your previous post baffled me - after all it showed a mix of Republicans, Independents and Democrats. You seem to structure your argument to ignore facts that you find inconvenient - what about Ducks Unlimited? Are they full of "enviroliberals"?
Clean coal is the most important alternative energy out there? Really? Since it's nonrenewable might it not be good to look at other sources such as solar and wind? Or is that too "liberal" for you?
I'm trying to have an open mind but I find your posts exhausting. I simply do not have the time to go through and refute you point by point. I hope someone else will be able to.
Oh - and if you want to build a coalition of folks who are concerned about the environment I guarantee the way to do it isn't to use wording such as this beauty you use to describe the Apollo Alliance: "the same tired collection of Democratic Party fronts -- civil rights groups, unions, and other liberal organizations."
Sign me,
Another heart and mind you seem to have alienated
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odograph Posted 3:21 am
13 Jun 2005
Speaking as a guy with a chem degree, who has even done a little emissions monitering at gas/coal plants ... boy, I prefer natural gas.
It might play into this a bit, that the Sierra Club is taking a position against LNG terminals, like the one in Long Beach. Is that "political" in the sense of this discussion, or just "non-pragmatic?"
http://angeles.sierraclub.org/pressroom/FS_LNG_Terminals.asp
I tend to think it is a little of both, and that a truly environment-first movement would be real enough to choose natural gas over coal or nuclear.
Strange how politics overlap such discussion though ... "clean coal" might end up being the Sierra Club ally ... if you've killed those terminals and don't want nukes.
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abbdrb Posted 3:57 am
13 Jun 2005
People would be surprised how many "conservatives" are actually very friendly to environmental causes, but are hesitant to get involved in groups that support these causes because they don't want to feel that they constantly have to defend their other political beliefs. How someone feels about gun control, religion, abortion, or any number of other "liberal vs conservative" topics should be completely irrelevant if the goal of an organization is truly to improve the environment.
I am very involved in a local organic garden club, and am happy to say that I don't even know the political leanings of most of our members. I don't care who any of them voted for in the last election (but I know at least several who voted for Bush), and I think that's why our club works so well.
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jdhlax Posted 5:36 am
13 Jun 2005
"[M]any environmentalists' contempt for economics is exceeded only by their ignorance thereof." You misunderstand: we don't have contempt for economics, but for putting economic concerns ahead of environmental or ecological ones. Regarding ignorance of economics, one need not know anything about economics to hold the view that all life should take precedence over economic concerns.
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odograph Posted 5:51 am
13 Jun 2005
I think this is the kind of thing that shocks conservatives, who also think of themsleves as environmentalists:
"Choose your side: Are you a progressive or a conservative? If you're a conservative, and believe in dismantling our government, selling off our common assets, and endless war, but you still ove nature, we wish you well, but we need you to leave this movement. We invite you to attack the conservatives, but don't try to make us ignore the plight of immigrants, stay out of gay rights or stay silent on the war. You are making us weak. If you think you're a conservative but don't believe in these distructive ideas - you are not. Join us if you're willing to question everything."
Man,
"If you think you're a conservative but don't believe in these distructive ideas - you are not."
what arrogance.
And who wrote this?
How about Adam Werbach, in "Is Environmentalistm Dead?"
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jdhlax Posted 6:17 am
13 Jun 2005
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odograph Posted 8:44 am
13 Jun 2005
He's actually making the claim that "endless war" is a conservative position, and if you don't beleive in "endless war" you are not a conservative.
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loshloshlahoi Posted 12:56 pm
13 Jun 2005
If all enviro-conservatives self-identified themselves to other conservatives and pushed for a pro-environmental agenda to be adopted by conservative organizations such as the RNC, that would be real progress. They'd also be more effective, as they'd be dealing with people who agree with them on just about everything.
Bottom line: if you want to unhitch environmentalism from liberalism, work on the conservatives-- they're the ones who need to be convinced that the environment requires care and attention.
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odograph Posted 1:15 pm
13 Jun 2005
REP America
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Bart Anderson Posted 1:16 pm
13 Jun 2005
Confession time -- I went through a period of Ayn Randist libertarianism. I still have respect for libertarians and conservatives who are true to their ideals. Ironically, they often come round to be fierce critics of the status quo. For example, the late Karl Hess, speechwriter for Barry Goldwater. Or Barry Goldwater himself, "Mr. Conservative," who became an outspoken critic of the sleeze and lying of the neo-cons. Or even Pat Buchanan, who represents the small town, isolationist Republicans, versus the militaristic neo-cons.
Here is an example of a libertarian I can respect... "I would say I am libertarian in economics (e.g. Rothbard, Mises, Hayek) but conservative in ethics. So, though I could defend free market capitalism as the most efficient form of wealth creation, my dim view of unbridled human nature necessitates the checks and balances of other agencies such as governmental enforcement of contracts and some other third agency such as the church or belief system so that the State doesn't begin to think it is God walking on the Earth (to quote Nietzsche)." (Roland Watson on Nicaragua in http://energybulletin.net/6651.html )
At a certain point, an honest conservative idealst realizes the truth that the (conservative) Italian economist/philospher Pareto enunciated, that in any political system, power tends to concentrate among the "ruthless and the efficient."
When you discover how you are being used, how your ideals are merely window dressing for the ruthless pursuit of wealth and power, how will you react? Will you sell out to earn a fine living as a greenwasher? Or will you be true to your ideals, even if they force you to re-examine your assumptions?
"Why should liberalism be the Siamese twin of environmentalism?"
By liberalism, I think you mean any movement that questions the excesses of capitalism and the oligarchy that runs it. Under Soviet communism, a liberal questioned the assumptions of State control. In other words, the liberal viewpoint is critical, skeptical. If you think it means adherence to any particular program, then you misunderstand the term.
Movie reviewer Roger Ebert had an interesting comment on the different reactions he gets to his writings. From the liberal-left, he gets long letters, "Here is where I think you misunderstood the theme. Globalization is [continues for 5 pages]." In contrast, from the right he gets threats and pornographic insults. In spite of your protests, Jeremy, I think that temperamentally you are a liberal.
"In general, our movement's far-left viewpoint..."
Why don't we turn to history and political science for definitions of left/right rather lift dubious assertions from the right wing websites? An accurate taxonomy:
Far left = anarchist, left-wing communist, Trotskyist
Left = commmunist, socialist
Liberal(1) = Social democrat, Labor parties, Christian Democrats.
Liberal (2) = Keynsian, New Deal Democrat
Liberal (3) = NPR Democrat
The description of the Sierra membership is very much Liberal(3). In terms of history, Richard Nixon was farther to the left than Bill Clinton.
"And we rake Bush over the coals on Kyoto..."
It isn't just "us". It is:
England's government
the world's leading scientists
big business
the vast majority of the US population
"many environmentalists' contempt for economics is exceeded only by their ignorance thereof. Hostility to cost-benefit analyses of our policy proposals makes many non-environmentalist policymakers wonder what our ultimate goals are."
Evidence? What on earth are you talking about it? It is true that many of us are skeptical of the religion of neo-classical economics, which is a farrago of dubious assumptions masquerading as science (on the other hand, it is very apt under certain circumstances and with the assumptions spelled out). Keynsian economics and ecological economics are sound alternatives to neo-classical economics.
The problem with cost-benefit analyses is when they are propaganda vehicles: "your cost, our benefit" analyses -- dubious assumptions presented as "science." If they are done honestly, then fine. If they are propaganda, then no thanks.
Some of your specific criticisms about "liberals" I would probably agree with. But for me, they are the inevitable shortcomings of any human activity, not an excuse to embrace the mind-numbing world of the right wing and corporate apologists.
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loshloshlahoi Posted 2:10 pm
13 Jun 2005
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odograph Posted 2:11 pm
13 Jun 2005
Human being do not fall into "left" and "right" ... and certainly not into two Parties.
Some "political compasses" put "market freedom" on one axis and "social freedom" on another. That's a start, but only that.
Of course, the way it works in America is that you cam place yourself on some X-Y position on the Chart of Freedoms ... and then discover that you've only got two choices on the ballot: and that they are both pretending as hard as they can to be "moderate."
When you get right down to it, this discussion is between people who are happy with conventional US labels of "liberal" and "conservative" and those who are not.
I think the current system is hugely broken. It allows people to take on cartoon persona for themselves, and to assign cartoon persona for their opponents.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:19 pm
13 Jun 2005
Do you not know who and what is in control of the US government and the world economy?
And exactly who this thread was started up by?
If we cannot learn to recognize the opposition, how can we fight them. Rove has instracted them to pretend they are environmentalists now.
It worked so well at reviving nuclear power..they are now trying to revive the "global warming needs more study" schtick, duuuhbya just talking pointed it out folks.
This ain't rocket science folks, get with it. Recognize the Rovians!
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amazingdrx Posted 3:00 pm
13 Jun 2005
Are you Gristmillers taking that lying down?
Such blatant sophistry is totally outrageous. No one was allowed to search for bin laden in tora bora. Jeremy, your neoconman leaders let him go.
The US intelligence agents who helped the Afghans defeat the taliban themselves, were called off in tora bora.
Indigenous revolution was working too well. Without bin laden, the neoconman version of "Snowball" (George Orwell, "Animal Farm"), the outside enemy lurking everywhere, Iraq could not have been invaded.
The war on terror would have ended in tora bora.
Your neoconman rummi heroes intentionally restrained US troops from capturing bin laden, and you present this insipid distortion somehow involving the courageous 10th mounbtain division fighting hitler's nazis?
You should not include real patriots in your traitorous neoconman propaganda.
The armchair warrior chicken hawk draft dodging duuhbya and cheney are your heroes, and you are claiming we leftists are slacking traitors who need to be ejected from your environmental movement?
I for one think someone ought to pull a Zell Miller on this "Jeremy"...if that is his real name. Hehey. Suuuh, if this were 200 years ago, I would challenge you....
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loshloshlahoi Posted 3:01 pm
13 Jun 2005
After all, fair is fair ;-)
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loshloshlahoi Posted 3:18 pm
13 Jun 2005
Rush Limbaugh avoided the draft with haemmorhoids, Dick Cheney got his wife pregnant, Tom Delay let the minorities do it, and of course Dubya just didn't show up. Where is the evidence that conservatives want to fight more than liberals? Oh, and who opposed declaring war after Pearl Harbor anyway?
I know some soldiers and they think Rumsfeld is a hack and the whole war on terror is being completely mismanaged. They are not monolithically conservative at all, especially not the enlisted guys. I wonder how many of the ToraBora crew JC actually knows.
Besides, comparing the soldiers of a draft war with a volunteer war is interesting rhetoric but kind of dishonest. When push comes to shove you think liberals wouldn't fight to save America? They're the ones who always have.
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Jeremy Carl Posted 8:13 pm
13 Jun 2005
First, I'm not suggesting the environmental movement has been universally wrong (far from it, else I would not be an environmentalist) nor that the Democratic party is bad. . I'm just starting with a premise, talking to a Grist audience, that I don't need to remind everyone of our successes. We know what they are. I'm interesting in fixing the ways we fall short.
I'm fascinated with the Manichean nature of some of the more hostile postings. There is more complexity to the world than forces of light vs. forces of darkness. Just as silly is the notion, that I am a Republican plant or spy or something similar. All of this Karl Rove and "neo-con" stuff--It's just absurd, and I hope it sounds ridiculous to the majority of Grist readers as it does to me.
I've said nothing about my politics in any of my posts other than that they are not liberal and that I am libertarian-leaning (but not a libertarian). The notion that Karl Rove is getting on a plane to New Delhi to hold secret meetings with me whenever I'm putting a flowerpot out on my windowsill is laughable.
I approached Grist under no one's initiative but my own and for no other reason than that I wanted to get some ideas out in the public space that I thought were important. And I thought Grist, which has always seemed more thoughtful to me than a lot of other environmental publications out there, was an ideal place. And frankly, I also don't need lectures about how immoral or greedy I must be. My wife, who was an extremely well-paid physician, and I, who have a lot of excellent professional experience and could have chosen to work for a very comfortable salary stateside, decided on our own to come to India and to work essentially for free.
As for Jeff's posts in response to both of my articles I think we just have a genuine disagreement on principle about many aspects of the society we'd like to see. I'm fine with having disagreements on principle, but I suspect that, for better or worse, few people would want to embrace the pre-agricultural lifestyles that you have advocated in your postings.
Odograph, I am thrilled that you brought up Adam Werbach, because he is exactly the sort of person I am talking about. Breathtakingly arrogant enough to think he was qualified to run the Sierra Club at age 23 and to write "Act Now, Apologize Later." He's followed this up with overheated rhetoric like the paragraph excerpted in your posting. It's enviroliberalism at its worst.
To the posters writing Re: Tora Bora, point duly noted and correct with respect to specifics but an utterly irrelevant concerning the underlying point, which is totally valid. And since I've been challenged on the particular point, yes, I have a friend who was heading one of the teams searching for Bin Laden. His priest gave him last rites before each mission. So I understand that war is no joke.
Bart, your post is thoughtful, and your quote from Watson fairly well summarizes my own philosophy, but again, you are making unwarranted assumptions about me and my politics. Trust me, working at an environmental think tank in India that is run by R.K. Pachauri, who is head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) I am most certainly not surrounded by conservative ideologues. Quite the opposite: In dealing with the government and NGO sector here, I am surrounded by liberal ideologues, many of whom have influenced the government to pursue policies that have been, in my view, unbelievably destructive and damaging to the Indian people.
But I was most interested in Bart's post below:
"At a certain point, an honest conservative idealist realizes the truth that the (conservative) Italian economist/philosopher Pareto enunciated, that in any political system, power tends to concentrate among the "ruthless and the efficient." When you discover how you are being used, how your ideals are merely window dressing for the ruthless pursuit of wealth and power, how will you react?"
Though I believe you had the opposite intention, I'm not sure I could have argued my own point any better. I've had the opportunity to work with and around a fair number of powerful people and I can assure you that regardless of their professed ideology, they were usually fairly unpleasant human beings whose ideals were mere covers for their own pursuit of "wealth and/or power"
It seems to me that conservatism (or a strand of it at least) fundamentally understands this which is why it opposes the encroachment of the state on people's pocketbooks, freedoms, and lives whereas liberalism wants to hand more power over to the state, and further concentrate it in the hands of the "ruthless and efficient" whose rule you correctly decry.
To close, I am pro-wilderness, anti-global warming, for clean water, clean air and sustainable lifestyles. I also balance these concerns with concerns about human needs that spring directly from spending time in India and other desperately poor developing countries where you learn that much basic development has an environmental cost. I'm also not a doomsayer who thinks we need to move backwards toward some fictional and idealized age of low-resource-use life. And I'm not comfortable in trusting my environmental future to the dishonest and venal people whom, regardless of professed ideology, run most governments.
That's why I'm an environmentalist, but not an enviroliberal.
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Andy Brett Posted 9:20 pm
13 Jun 2005
Your position of having once been, as you said, an Ayn Randist libertarian, is very intriguing. I am very curious as to what it was that made you change from this viewpoint. I know you've mentioned realizing Pareto's truth and discovering that you are "being used." Are there other specific writings, or material you've watched, that led to this conversion to enviroliberal?
Also, as a separate point, I think that anarchists and left-wing communists are about as opposite as you can get. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my understanding of the two terms.
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odograph Posted 12:48 am
14 Jun 2005
It should be easy to declare that common ground, and then discuss specific risks to the planet and our future, along with possible responses.
Moderate, pragmatic, responses are going to try to balance potential risks and the magnitude of action.
That's good, general stuff, and I think it shows that you don't have to start with cartoon demonization of any particular group.
But cartoon demonization has been the theme of this thread more often than not. It is, quite horribly, what we humans do. Limbaugh will rant about environmental wackos, and Werbach will rant about conservative warmongers.
It's really too bad that Grist is a place to perpetuate those stereotypes, rather than discard them.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:10 am
14 Jun 2005
Then neocon environmentalists like Jeremy play the good cop. Yes there might be global warming, so let's get US some new nuke cue lar power plants to solve that problem...just in case it's real.
Come on Jeremy get off the neo-politics and tell us, do you believe in fossil fuel CO2 inspired global climate change, do you believe nukes are the answer?
Are renewables merely a 3% solution to these problems? is "The Apollo project" too radical, in it's goal of 10% purchase of green energy by government by 2015?
Will neo-environmentalists consider nukes green energy? Just the facts please, cut the neo-political neo-speak.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:25 am
14 Jun 2005
So conservation is right out! Right Jeremy?
Accept the "fact" that human population will soar, because neo-environmentalists are "pro-life", meaning no reproductive rights for women anywhere on earth. That is just too, too liberal!?
Now accept the next "fact", wind, solar, biofuel, hybrid plugin vehicles, bikes, public transportartion....can never take up the slack.
Only nukes can "cleanly" provide the increasing power demands. It's either that or coal, right Jeremy.
Thanks Grist! By putting Jeremy in the thread you have exposed a lot of the leading edge neocon enviro-talking points to the light of day.
Good work Jeremy, keep on blogging.
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David Roberts Posted 2:22 am
14 Jun 2005
www.grist.org
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jdhlax Posted 2:24 am
14 Jun 2005
There's plenty to complain about in government, but we at least have some chance to control or change it with elections, as flawed as those are. Corporations are pure tyrannies that operate without any public oversight or control, where it's one dollar one vote as opposed to one person one vote. Again, I don't feel that the U.S. government is at all representative of the U.S. population due to private campaign financing and lack of proportional representation, but hopefully we can change that through elections. The vast majortity of us who aren't rich have no chance to change how corporations operate, absent the extremely rare successful campaigns that force them to change their most egregious practices.
As to Jeremy's statement that "few people would want to embrace [] pre-agricultural lifestyles," my response is that it doesn't matter one bit what most people want. Any lifestyle that is not sustainable will end, and there's no evidence that agricultural is sustainable, whereas the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is.
As to his comment that a "low-resource-use life" is "fictional," that's patently false. Just about everyone on the planet consumes far less than Americans, and people a very short time ago didn't consume that much. Traditional indigenous societies consume very little and live in harmony with their surroundings. There is nothing "fictional" about a life of little material consumption, it's far better for the planet, and it's spiritually evoloved from being a materialist. It's also not, as Jeremy claims, moving backwards, but instead would be an evolution in human consciousness to fully realize that we can live without the vast majority of crap that we now consume.
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callisto Posted 2:51 am
14 Jun 2005
Nor, Jeremy, do we need to dismiss Amazingdrx's comments as conspiracy theories for pointing out that the current Republican administration likes to take credit for caring for the environment (Clean Skies...) without actually doing so. I sincerely doubt that Amazingdrx thinks you are a Rove plant, but rather that some of your commentary is actually counterproductive to protecting the environment and those of us who live in it.
I'm going on vacation and hope that when I return I find less of this "liberals are unpatriotic", "nuclear sure may be the way to go" sort of posting. If not I'll look elsewhere.
I already have a child at home - I don't need to watch environmentalists acting like children online.
Rachel
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odograph Posted 2:59 am
14 Jun 2005
* - assuming a silly, single-axis, system
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amazingdrx Posted 3:00 am
14 Jun 2005
As far as I can tell, he is now claiming that neo-conservatives are the real environmentalists, and the rest of us are fakes.
Who need to be ejected from the environmental movement so it can embrace a larger constituency.
And once that embrace occurs, what are we left with? Why anything that "more study" says is necessary.
Say nuke you lar power to stop global warming..just in case it exists?
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amazingdrx Posted 3:02 am
14 Jun 2005
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amazingdrx Posted 3:13 am
14 Jun 2005
Here Dave, check it out.
Don't believe in talking points? That word "realpolitick" used as an all-encompassing reason why environmentalism must be scaled back.
At least this guy on NRDC admits his neo-conservative affiliation.
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bhurley Posted 3:19 am
14 Jun 2005
I've voted for only one Republican in my life (James Jeffords of Vermont, who turned out to not be a Republican after all!) and I find most conservative views to be disturbing, yet I'd be willing to put aside whatever predjudices and dislikes I may have about conservatives and work with them if I thought such cooperation might lead to a better environment. And I think it would. We need more environmentalists in this world, whatever their political persuasion.
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callisto Posted 3:20 am
14 Jun 2005
A few questions relating to the environment, too. Perhaps we need a political compass for environmental issues? Now that might be interesting.
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David Roberts Posted 3:37 am
14 Jun 2005
It's got nothing to do with environmentalism. Nor is it a code word for everything anyone on the left finds distasteful. Casting about accusations of neo-this and neo-that and talking about Rove-ian conspiracies -- instead of, say, engaging the substance of what Jeremy says -- makes you sound like a comic book.
Jeremy acknowledged the environmental shortcomings of this administration. He never said he's Republican. He said he's "not liberal" and that he has "libertarian leanings." Apparently that's enough to get him lumped in with this undifferentiated lump of Evil many folks have in their head -- which seems to include everyone who has different views than they do.
I differ with Jeremy on several things, but I'm happy to hear what he has to say. Heck, I even harbor the strange thought that hearing a diverse range of views is good for me.
The kind of chest-beating and poop-throwing that's gone on in this thread doesn't sound like concern for the environment to me -- it sounds like tribalism.
www.grist.org
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amazingdrx Posted 3:48 am
14 Jun 2005
It's good to get this out in the open.
As far as the premier power cabal promoting corporate feudalism not having an agenda favoring nukes, coal, and oil...and the monopolistic empire that goes with it?
Wake up and smell the "darth" cheney.
You can't be serious. You don't see the neo-consevative political powers that control this country lobbying in and out of government for these monopolistic interests?
Did you read about the administration idealogue deleting mentions to global warming in scientific reports?
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amazingdrx Posted 3:55 am
14 Jun 2005
As I said, outline your personal energy policy views and then we can debate factually, instead of politically.
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odograph Posted 4:05 am
14 Jun 2005
I've taken the political compass test in the past and scored very close to dead center.
I tend to trust the second survey more.
On the environmental compass, sure. It would probably be a measure for how healthy you believe the planet to be, and if environmental concerns are justified.
But again, I think stereotypes are a bigger problem than specific beliefs. I've had discussion with folks who oppose "environmentalists" ... and when I point out that we can't just go down to the ocean and catch a fish to eat(*), they say "oh, that's bad."
You can get a guy like that working on the health of the ocean, a lot easier than you can make him an "environmentalist."
* - we have to go to the State of California Fish and Game webpage to see how many ounces are safe to eat.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:19 am
14 Jun 2005
Especially in this age of propaganda.
They fooled 80% of america with WMD propaganda.
They fooled how many with the nuclear power or global climate disaster propaganda.
Now we have this whole cooption of environmentalism by the "real" environmentalists propaganda.
How many are buying that? When will the Sierra Club turn to lobbying for nukes?
According to Jeremy, Sierra club members all should be joining up to hunt for bin laden. Or admit they are anti-american cowards who ought to quit the environmental movement for the good of mother earth.
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odograph Posted 4:21 am
14 Jun 2005
Tax "bad" energy, and "hogs" of bad energy higher
Fund research into alternatives
Allow a free market in those alternatives
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amazingdrx Posted 4:35 am
14 Jun 2005
How would you allow this free market? Subsidize wind, solar, plugin hybrids, and biofuel equally to the present subsidies for fossil and nuke power?
Or cut the subsidies for fossil and nukes? and then that will allow a free market?
I myself favor government making fossil and nuke pay its way with taxes to clean up the mess they made. And add a dollar a gallon fuel tax to pay for oil wars.
And establish a national power grid with free and fair access and trading that allows long term energy shift towards renewables and away from fossil and nukes.
Monopolies can only be busted by providing free and fair markets where the price of commodities like energy reflect the real underlying costs involved in each, like waste disposal, pollution, and endless war over oil and other fossil fuels as the supply decreases.
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seabear Posted 4:40 am
14 Jun 2005
I've been wrestling with this in my own blog and will point you to one posting in which I relate a personal story of conflict with "enviroliberalism":
http://greenskeptic.blogspot.com/2005/03/evangelical-environmental-awakening.html
I wonder if others have had similar experiences? And the question remains, How can we build a truly inclusive movement when we're too busy name-calling and second-guessing?
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amazingdrx Posted 4:51 am
14 Jun 2005
That is how one gets an invitation eyyh?
Keep promoting the destruction of the environment from within the movement, and you will always feel sick.
Apologists for unregulated industrial destruction of nature for profit will never be welcome in any real environmental organization.
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seabear Posted 5:14 am
14 Jun 2005
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CowsEatGrass Posted 8:52 am
14 Jun 2005
I know Jeremy's comments have aroused the usual suspects, but I suppose you'll have that.
Informed, diverse discussion with a broad base of inputs and constuients is what we need more of. Many don't want to hear that the "environmental movement" is elitist and exclusionary--but it seems to bother those most who perpetuuate those facets and who fear change as their positions might make less sense than they once thought. Oh, and then there's some off-the-wall ideas about hunting and gathering (acorn, anyone?), GMO's, and nuclear power seemingly to derail things further.
What happened to the middle path?
I have heard a few moderate voices here, but generally it's just bickering from one side to the other. Sounds like the impassioned minorities on both sides shutting out a reasonable, yet complacent, majority--we might as well have an election here.
While I disagree with Jeremy's examples and some of his stances, I think I agree with the overall, original point of this post. Why should environmentalism be married to any other ideology? When will it take on a life of its own and start making the categories instead of being shaped by the old tired categories we inherited?
I've crossed swords before with the above mentioned instigators before in the religion discussion. The hubris and hypocrisy in the trying to force others out who want to work toward the same goal is all but unbelievable to me. Beyond that, it's what's wrong with environmentalism in the United States today. Petty turf wars.
I don't write this to point the finger at either side, or direct it away from myself; I think the discussion that has evolved here is a perfect example of why Grist has (and should have) endorsed Jeremy to post. With no discussion between environmentalists with different core values, the shared goal dissolves into a penis flailing contest rather than an informed discussion about real issues.
Let's talk about how to get something done rather than fighting about the second-order intellectual crap.
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odograph Posted 9:17 am
14 Jun 2005
Ideally, we would remove subsidies from coal and nuclear, and tax or penalize their outputs (stack emissions in the case of coal, and waste in the case of nuclear, etc.).
I gave my philosophical position, because that was where I thought we were in the conversation. Do I think removing subsidies will ever happen? No.
I think this country, citizens and politicians of all stripes, have a sick addiction to "credits" as a solution to our energy problems. Unfortunately that means that technologies with the most political juice, rather than the cleanest or most efficient, get the loot. In a time of massive debt.
And the credit system means we are left to guess exactly how well technologies are working ... would ethanol stand on its own feet? No one knows.
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wallrock Posted 10:06 am
14 Jun 2005
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:25 pm
14 Jun 2005
I volunteered for a Quaker work project on the South Side of Chicago in 1966. Quite a shock to a nerdy guy from the suburbs to find himself in the largest black population outside of Africa. I saw and heard first-hand about exploitation and racism. Most moving was participation in an SCLC drive to desegregate the white suburb of Cicero, and hearing ML King speak in a huge church packed to the rafters; people singing and swaying, knowing that some of them would be attacked on the march the next day. My carefully constructed little philosophy took quite a beating... thank God! Later I spent time in Europe and Guatemala, greedily absorbing the culture and history.
I wonder if Jeremy is experiencing the same thing in India? **ALL** our American opinions pale before the reality of that ancient civilization, cradle of religions, home to rajahs, hill tribes, sophisticated business people, Gandhi, hundreds of millions of rural poor, a myriad of traditions. Jeremy, why are you wasting time on our ephemeral American squabbling when India is in front of you? What an opportunity you have! (And what culture shock you must feel.)
I once read a phrase that described the experience. "It was in my thirties that the mirrors around me turned into windows."
---
Thanks to several posters for their encouraging words. I appreciate it.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:33 pm
14 Jun 2005
"Philip A. Cooney, the former White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming, will go to work for Exxon Mobil this fall, the oil company said yesterday."
Speaking of administration energy policy, deleting references to global warming, and neoconmen...check this out Dave.
The corporation rules in the neo-conservative world. It's government of, by, and for corporate power unlimited.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:44 pm
14 Jun 2005
It's not quite that unknowable odograph.
Were ethanol produced using crop and food waste, using wind and solar power, it would certainly compete without any credits.
But the administration's version of energy policy will not even do the easy step to save huge quantities of expensive blood-for-oil. They will not even push industry to use renewable energy to provide the heat energy needed to refine oil.
Or the obvious step of encouraging all biofuels, like ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, and methane to be produced using wind and solar power.
Instead oil based energy is used to grow corn, with diesel tractors and oil based fertilizer. Then that corn is processed using more fossil fuel and nuclear produced power. By the time the ethanol gets in your vehicle, twice the inported oil has been used to produce it as was "saved" by the biofuel process.
And all of this subsidized by pork barrels of debt.
On the other hand, with wind and solar powered processing, every source of biofuel in the waste stream could economiccally be turned into fuel that would replace imported blood-for-oil.
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odograph Posted 12:48 am
15 Jun 2005
You have an idea, which I'm sure is very reassuring to you, that honesty and maybe even "niceness" line up on the same scale as belief in centralized government.
Unfortunately, such tribalism (us good, them bad) is the at the root of many of the worlds problems.
Ethanol/Subsidies
You say it is not unknowable, and then give a blue-sky cellulosic ethanol dream. Pausing of course to digress on evil conservatives, painting them all as blood-for-oil warmongers, of course. In all, not very convincing.
My opinion, after reading yor posts for a couple days is that I can agree with you on some nuts-and-bolts issues, but that your head is stuck in your tribe, and that kind of "enviroliberalism" is what turns off people like me (in the middle) and I'm sure quite inflames people even inches further to the right.
I think you have to look at your goals. Are you into tribe-building, or problem-solving?
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amazingdrx Posted 2:01 am
15 Jun 2005
State's rights anyone? Could the konfederate korporate states have won WW 2, or did it takre federal leadership?
The economics of ethanol, or any other biofuel, production from crop and food waste using wind and solar power will not be to your liking.
Are you sure you want it all brought up? Wouldn't it be better to lanquish in your neo-dreams of corporate power instead?
Do you envision GE bringing nukes and "clean" coal derived oil to the rescue?
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amazingdrx Posted 2:05 am
15 Jun 2005
By any chance? Well look at this..Tom Friedman says we can still win!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/opinion/15friedman.html?hp
Only cost another trillion or so... much cheaper than renwable energy? Riiight?
Are you sure?
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odograph Posted 2:16 am
15 Jun 2005
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jimbeyer Posted 7:09 am
15 Jun 2005
The real issue, however, for this go around is the (lower) relative cost premium for renewable energy. Unlike the 70's where oil went from (?) $3 to $9, we have a serious challenge to oil from these other sources. Throw the global warming threat and regional instability into the mix, and the argument can be quite persuasive, even to the right.
This would seem like a no-brainer; most everyone would seem to benefit from this change. But renewable energy, by its very nature, is a diffuse, widespread resource. There is no oil field or even oil region to control. There isn't even a universal commodity to regulate or to tax. Renewable energy is about the permanent loss of a major source of control of much of modern humanity. That's the real issue. And it's not just about big corporations, it's also about governments, probably even more so.
The so-called "Hydrogen Economy" is an attempt to try to structure renewable energy and remaining coal resources into a mechanism of control. (This is my best guess -- The oil companies are far too bright to not recognize the fundamental thermodynamic problems with hydrogen as a fuel.) But load-mouthed individuals (kudos to Joe Romm and others) have pointed out the problems with hydrogen and why it won't work. EVER. The odd thing is how few organizations have publicly come out against hydrogen, despite its clear problems to anyone skilled in that field. If the NAS would only publicly register "concerns". The DOE is co-opted. I can't think of any other explanation for their behavior.
The fact that they'd try to pawn hydrogen on us is a sign of some desperation. It's a big lie that doesn't seem to be "taking". (Plugin hybrids, cellulosic ethanol, and renewable methane are much smaller lies -- some of them might work....)
If it was simply the switch from one energy source to another, there would be no such bizarre deception. (I don't know what else to call major companies publicly proclaiming they deny the reality of basic college physics.) They would just go about the change, and move on. Like the replacement of CFCs used in refrigeration, for example.
But this is different, and they know it. This is about the loss of control. In a very fundamental sense. In a way that goes far beyond energy. They are striving to structure the changeover so that control can be maintained. Control of energy for setting prices. And collecting taxes. And they know if they do lose control, they will never get it back.
Who is the "They?" Some big companies. Governments. Republicans. Democrats. Anyone with power. Anyone and everyone with something to lose.
Am I wrong? Maybe. But then, explain the hydrogen hype. Explain the sudden "environmentalism" of those who don't want wind turbines erected. Explain the coal industry which trumpets "clean coal" with one breath and then downplays the effects of mercury emissions with the next. It's like we are living in some bizarre surrealist play.
They may win, but they are fighting against the laws of thermodynamics, so it's quite a challenge for them. They are counting on us to be stupid. (It might work; 67 out of 100 Senators advocated fuel cell powered automobiles to be deployed in the next 10 years... <sigh>)
One way or another, humanity is entering a new chapter. Large, fundamental forces of control will most likely enter their death throes. So, pull up a chair and enjoy the ride. Change is afoot.
Build plugin hybrids that run on renewable methane. That's all that's needed.
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:05 pm
15 Jun 2005
In fact, I think that there are many different environmentalist movements, with a place for just about everyone who is willing to work and not just spout opinions.
There is a place for libertarians, smalltown Republicans, moderate Republicans, fundamentalist Christians. There is even a place for neo-cons, in their incarnation as the Geo-Greens (the name Thomas Friedman gave them). If they are flexible and willing to roll up their shirtsleeves, why not?
I love to see business people and libertarians come up with real market-based solutions -- real actions, not carping criticism.
I don't think it is worthwhile to water down the environmentalist message in the hope of winning over ideological conservatives. It's better to have a strong message and to seek out allies with whom you can make common cause.
The tide is running with environmentalism. Peak oil and global warming are bringing public opinion our way. We have a good message, a good analysis, good solutions.
Let's move ahead.
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SkyHunter Posted 5:08 pm
15 Jun 2005
Because I have always cared for the environment, when I discovered the true cost of the meat, dairy, and fishing industries, I could no longer call myself an environmentalist, so I switched to a plant based diet. It was the best thing I have ever done. Not only for the environment, but for myself as well.
This quote is always associated with Einstein, however I have never seen it verified. Irregardless it is on the mark.
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
~Albert Einstein
How will the planet survive 2 billion more people converting to a western animal based diet?
Here are a few more interesting quotes.
"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."
Leo Tolstoy
"In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people."
Ruth Harrison, author of Animal Machines
How many of you otherwise intelligent people will defend such a practice and still call yourselves environmentalists?
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CowsEatGrass Posted 10:11 am
16 Jun 2005
I personally, been nearly vegetarian for the last 5 years. By nearly, I mean I have eaten meat between 5 and 10 times over that period.
I do not question the arguments against the uniquely American diet based primarily on animal-derived products. Nor do I question the arguments against raising animals on feedlots, with grain--for both ethical and environmental reasons. The planet and the human psyche will continue to suffer under the current methods of meat production and will multiply if, in fact, westernization of diets continues. Mr. Harrison, whom you quote, notes the difficulty we face in overcoming the status-quo.
HOWEVER, the statement that killing animals is unethical in an absolute sense is unfounded. (Universalist, absolutist statements drive me crazy in general -- see my last post on nearly the same subject) We cannot live without making a profound difference. We cannot live without killing things. I challenge anyone to draw a line on which we can clearly kill things on one side and not things on the other; it just won't work.
I do agree with Tolstoy that "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food" -- but the rest simply does not follow. First of all--he simply goes straight to the normative from the substantive. Secondly, he fails to consider our enjoyment as worthwhile.
So what do I think we should do? Eat very little meat. Raise all of our meat on the foods they have evolved to eat (usually grass). And treat them well dammit; we are taking their lives to sustain our own--they deserve the utmost respect.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that animal husbandry CAN be done right, but is rarely done so. Unfortunately, too many people have never been on a farm, patted a grazing pig, or chased down a calf who jumped the fence.
I advise anyone who is concerned about environmental issues to pay attention to where their meat comes from. Find a farmer, shake his or her hand and ask them how they raise their livestock. If you like what you hear, buy something from them.
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CowsEatGrass Posted 10:16 am
16 Jun 2005
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amazingdrx Posted 12:51 am
17 Jun 2005
By repeatng the old saw over and over that renewables are not a practical energy source, and that nuclear power, mideast "peace" (the Richardson energy policy), and "clean" coal are the only way to save the economy from destruction and mother earth from global warming, they paint those of us in favor of green energy as dangerous leftwing radicals.
And then nukes, oil, and coal become the new political center.
Just as invasion, occupation, and nation building became the political center once the WMD and other lies were repeated until 80% of amewrica believed them.
When duuhbya campaigned against nation building in 2000, that foreign policy was the political center.
You need to examine your position on energy policy. I think it comes down squarely in the neo-middle. "More study" is the key talking point.
"More study" is the new (neo)political center. You all are being duped as 80% was duped by the WMD lies.
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CowsEatGrass Posted 1:30 am
17 Jun 2005
The second problem is that you assume that when the center is shifted, self-proclaimed centrists shift with it. Why? My opinions don't change as the climate changes. I don't cling to the center like an ideologue clings to the right or the left. That's the whole force behind my position--clinging to an ideology because you can then hide behind a label is ridicuolous. Standing up for what you believe regardless of where it falls on the spectrum or how it is spun is the basis of citizenship.
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malcolmke Posted 1:55 am
22 Jun 2005
Literally, the word "liberal" is associated with open-mindedness and "conservative" means wanting to keep things as they are. In today's political climate, however, the connotations of these terms have grown beyond the bounds of their dictionary definitions.
Mr. Carl seems to associate liberalism with big government, red tape and cumbersome regulations. I have two concerns with this. One is that environmental and consumer protection regulations, though they may be costly and time-consuming for businesses to keep up with, have done a lot of good for the public. Although progress towards cleaner air and water and healthy ecosystems has been slow, most of what has improved has been due to the strict enforcement of laws and regulations, not the voluntary good will of the private sector. The negative connotation that Mr. Carl puts on beaureaucracy, from an environmental standpoint, is largely undeserved.
Second, although the common perception is that the Democratic Party is the party of big government and excessive spending, the opposite has been true in the recent decades. Government spending was lower in the Carter and Clinton administrations than in the Reagan and both Bush administrations. The bigger difference, however, is in where that spending goes. Republican administrations have tended to put more into defense and directly to the private sector, whereas Democratic administrations have put more towards public interest protection.
Mr. Carl should be careful not to indulge in liberal-bashing while trying to make a point that I'm sure most environmentalists agree with: environmental protection is something that appeals to both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. If you want folks from the other side of the aisle to join your cause, it's best not to falsely malign them while you're at it.
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Russ Finley Posted 6:05 am
22 Jun 2005
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