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Page added on April 20, 2015
White, Wealthy, and Whiney: An Environmental Movement in Need of a Makeover
On the 45th Earth Day this week, environmentalists deserve a pat on the back — and an image overhaul.
Now that I’ve gotten your attention with an over-the-top headline, understand that I don’t really buy it. Not completely, anyway.
But millions of Americans do, and because of that, pushback against environmental initiatives is both strong and often devoid of reason.
With an environmental movement whose lifespan can be measured by 45 annual Earth Days (this Wednesday is Earth Day 2015), it’s time to ask a question: How can a movement featuring so many smart, high-achieving people talking science-backed common sense for so long on issues that can literally be life-or-death still have such a hard time?
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| Center for American Progress/flickr |
| Michael Bloomberg and others recently donated tens of millions to the Sierra Club. |
Default response number one, of course, is that on issues such as climate, health, energy and habitat, it’s little enviros versus big money. But that’s too easy.
There’s a statutory limit to the number of things you can blame on the Koch Brothers. And that underdog argument fades away quickly when the Sierra Club has a $60 million fundraising day, courtesy of Michael Bloomberg and others. The “wealthy” meme gets reinforced, and hard feelings toward enviros in the coalfields and hollers of Appalachia get a little harder.
I’ve been either an observer or a participant in things environmental for the last 35 of those 45 years. Here’s some unsolicited advice for a “movement” in middle age to burnish its image and broaden its public standing.
Don’t kid yourself
Progress happens, but it takes years. I’ve been hearing that renewable energy is “just around the corner” since the late 1970’s. It’s been at least two decades since I first heard that climate denial was dying out.
Today, of course, wind and solar are finally catching on, but climate denial rules one TV news network, nearly all of talk radio, key House and Senate committees, and it will be spending a lot of time in Iowa and New Hampshire for the next ten months.
Near where I live, the City of Atlanta still sends occasional raw sewage discharges down two rivers, the South and the Chattahoochee, despite the 43 year-old law intended in part to stop such things. But this doesn’t happen nearly as often as it used to.
A lot of the people I’ve seen get jaded or burned out became that way because the slow progress was hard to recognize. The only problem with counseling extreme patience, of course, is that melting ice caps and vanishing forests and species may not accommodate much patience.
Caucasian conundrum continues in conservation caucus
Can somebody please deal with the white thing? In January 1990, civil rights activists sent a letter to eight major U.S. conservation groups, calling them out on their “isolation” from poor and minority communities. The leaders of those groups responded by acknowledging the problem and vowing to do better.
A quarter century later, Big Green can show modest improvement in its ranks, but almost none at or near the top (exception: Rhea Suh, the new Korean-American leader of the Natural Resources Defense Council.).
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| National Rifle Association Ad, 1982 |
Learn from others, even if you may not like them
In the 1980’s, the National Rifle Association confronted an image issue similar to one that vexes environmentalists. Many Americans viewed NRA members as single-issue maniacs. Their solution was a successful imaging campaign featuring Main Street Americans like little Bryan Hardin (left). A barrage of NRA ads featured not only adorable towheads with BB guns, but construction workers, schoolteachers, nurses, African-Americans and Latinos and more.
Today, the NRA is a political juggernaut. If a group that advocates assault rifles and hollow-point ammo (not to mention NRA’s recent foray into anti-environment measures) can paint itself as benign, can it be that hard for enviros?
Advocating for clean and air water shouldn’t make you an unpatriotic job-killing pariah. Let’s work on this.
Don’t be afraid to brag
I’m astonished that, aside from organizations’ fundraising apparatus, there’s little sense of accomplishment for the environmental movement. Environmentalists’ efforts haven’t been flawless, but they’ve been effective and accurate in ways that don’t get enough credit.
Cleaner air, cleaner water, scads of preserved open space, a recovering ozone hole, and countless species either recovering or at least hanging on are gifts to America from enviros, as well as from some widely-despised laws, regulations and government agencies. Take the credit as often as you can.
Use history as a (nonviolent) weapon
Name a genuine American environmental hero. Okay, now name one that hasn’t been dead for fifty years or more.
The modern environmental movement is old enough to have a history. Not only is it one to brag about but the history of environmental opponents is pretty shameful. One example: It’s useful to be well-versed in the list of public figures who used to embrace action on climate change, until it no longer fit into their business model: John McCain, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were all avid about climate action until the presidency became a goal for each of them.
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and his boss, Rupert Murdoch, spoke out strongly on climate change until about ten years ago. And best of all, Alaska governor Sarah Palin signed a forward-thinking executive order on climate change in 2007 but, less than a year later, she was on the vice presidential campaign trail, insisting it was all a hoax.
The media: Oy Vey.
Talk about white, wealthy and whiney. Talk back to your TV. Raise hell with your editor. The science on climate change is so thoroughly validated that while honest debate is always welcome, climate denial is no longer honest debate.
Any news organization that still thinks it’s appropriate to “balance” climate science with a crackpot political operative should hear from you. If the topic were medicine rather than climate change, they wouldn’t pair Sanjay Gupta, M.D. to “debate” a witch doctor or faith healer, would they?
And speaking of debates, the nation’s political reporters and pundits are still largely in a climate coma. We endured an entire presidential campaign in 2012 with not a single debate question about climate or energy.
The inevitable asterisk
Every bit of this is easier said than done, and to a lot of veteran advocates and activists, much of this is stating the obvious. But much of it remains undone. If years from now, far too many Americans still perceive of the environmental movement as white, wealthy, and whiney, we will have wasted a lot of Earth Days.
14 Comments on "White, Wealthy, and Whiney: An Environmental Movement in Need of a Makeover"
Plantagenet on Mon, 20th Apr 2015 6:28 pm
Don’t worry. Hillary will continue Obama’s fine work in stopping the seas from rising and the planet from warming.
Apneaman on Mon, 20th Apr 2015 6:37 pm
TIME: What You Don’t Need to Know (About Refugees)
“Oh. But wait. There has been poverty and violent conflict, as well as totalitarian repression, in North Africa and the Middle East since before the Bible found a publisher, so why are there human waves of refugees now? Why has the influx into southern Europe gone from huge last year to awe-inspiring this year? What else could be going on? You won’t find it in TIME.
You can find it on page 34 of a 2013 study by the Center for American Progress titled The Arab Spring and Climate Change:……”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2015/04/20/time-what-you-dont-need-to-know-about-refugees/#more-2852
redpill on Mon, 20th Apr 2015 7:27 pm
Ah, such wit Plant. At least they both are on the record as believing those things are happening.
Can’t imagine your going to vote for Hillary, so do you have an (R) favorite yet? The Koch’s are starting to make public their liking of Walker. Jeb perhaps?
paulo1 on Mon, 20th Apr 2015 8:31 pm
Personally, I think the environmental movement is full of hypocrites. Particularly, the Sierra Club. It is a big business for Latte sippers who then climb into their Prius and drive home.
I also think Al Gore is just another rich dick and Paul Watson a self-serving scam artist. They really undermine true individual environemtalists who try to live their days ‘doing no harm’. Rachael Carson, where are you when we really need you?
noun
1.
a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2.
a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, especially one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.
Apneaman on Mon, 20th Apr 2015 8:38 pm
The other all white whiners.
http://www.pointlessplanet.com/2013/03/ngc-doomsday-preppers.html#.VTWlUvAV2g4
Makati1 on Mon, 20th Apr 2015 10:48 pm
45 years and no positive results. The world is in terrible shape and we are losing 200 species daily according to some sources. I suspect too many pockets were filled with the donations and too little effort used to actually affect change.
Chasing whale boats or picketing oil platforms is a joke. You have to buy governments like the opposition does. That takes trillions, not millions of dollars. Failed from the start.
Davy on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 1:25 am
We are at the point of terminal illness. The twin condition of overconsumption and overpopulation cannot be overcome, Period, end of story. BAU’s end is the only way to change that equation. That end will likely be dirty, ugly, and deadly for what is left of the environment. Once growth is over humans will exhibit locust behavior as with any other species. Both greens and browns are delusional and in denial. Both seek a BAU continuation through complexity and energy intensity.
The browns are not apologetic about growth. They believe in economic dreams of technological innovation and substitution utilizing markets to grow and advance in a manifest destiny of a progress. Greens believe in carbonless progress that respects the environment and embraces sustainable development. Greens believe education and transitional behavior will mitigate our problems. Population growth will be managed along with environmental problems if and only if we change behavior. Greens, like browns, want to use technology to fix technology. They believe that we can continue the complexity and energy intensive life with renewables at all levels food to fuel.
What is wrong with this picture? We are at the end of growth and in diminishing returns. Most ecosystems are in decline or are collapsing. Population is in an overshoot to carrying capacity of a healthy ecosystem. We are unable as a species to control our consumption or population by choice. We choose more technology and complexity to try to solve problems caused by technology and complexity. We need ever more energy in terms of food and fuel to manage a growing population and consumption trends. We are finally hitting the ceiling with food and fuel. This stagnation is causing broad based instability.
This stall is a subtle at the moment with the condition of diminishing returns. We are on a plateau and possibly already into a bumpy descent. The rate of real growth has likely stop growing. There is definitely wealth transfer and cannibalization growth but that is destructive not true growth. This is the critical systematic condition that will spell the end of complexity driving BAU. Chaos is entering a complex, interconnected, unsustainable and non-resilient system.
BAU must expand and grow to accommodate increased consumption and population. Our interconnected JIT economy of dispersed comparative advantage production, globally connected distribution, and global finance driven system cannot degrowth. This system can only cycle within growth. It cannot stop growing for more than a short period without financial system failures, food insecurity, and fuel shortages.
Browns are completely delusional of cause and effect. They live in a creationism dream of god like man spreading into the solar system as necessary to achieve growth and progress. Greens are hypocrites wanting cake and to eat it. If you are truly green you stop all modern activity or at least acknowledge you cannot have modern activity. Greens are well ahead of browns in accepting science it’s just they think science and technology is going to save us from science and technology. They think carbonless technology is the answer along with smart grids and steady state economics. It aint because we are too far gone.
We can have green efforts at mitigation and adaptation to a generation of excess deaths and environmental failures that are already in the pipeline and unavoidable. We can embrace policies in a scientific way that seeks to reduce the worst of what we are doing and try to make the descent more humane. We can reduce truly bad behavior, lifestyles, and attitudes that will compound the misery. But we can’t make things shiny, clean, and healthy.
That my friends is the shit because it points to a shitty future with stink that cheap perfume can’t cover. This is where the greens have gone wrong. Greens think you can put perfume on shit to stop the stink and that just ain’t so. Greens are a step up from the brainless brownies but just barely.
Apneaman on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 2:05 am
Don’t cha ever feel like your from a different species, Davy. I know I do most of the time. Remember what Carlin said about life being a Freak Show and living in America is having a front row seat. Were all freaks in our own way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SkzFL3_HZI
Davy on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 2:37 am
Frig, Ape man, I walk around in a half daze at the shit I see. The surreal experience of sheeples that think they have a life and a brain but in reality are just cattle heading to slaughter. I am not saying I am any better. I am admitting I am a hypocrite for criticizing BAU but stuck in it. BAU is going to kill us so let’s get out of the denial of death and start building some hospices. Yea, Ape man, I feel like a freak that is in reality sane by being a freak. The crazy that has some sense. What a friggen warped world we live in.
Kenz300 on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 8:19 am
Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and US churches | World news | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/27/pope-francis-edict-climate-change-us-rightwing
Head Of The Episcopal Church Says It’s ‘Sinful’ To Ignore Climate Change
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/26/katherine-jefferts-schori-climate-change_n_6949532.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green
PrestonSturges on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 11:17 am
Somewhere around 1980 the environmental movement decided to focus on GMOs while the planet burned. Since reality refuses to line up with their fantasies, they rely heavily on conspiracy theories. Many of them seem to be unable to sustain a conversation on any topic. Over-medicated? Under-medicated?
PrestonSturges on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 11:29 am
Plant’s just offended by the “whiny white guy” framing.
Apneaman on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 11:57 am
Preston, you make it sound like there is one massive group of united like minded individuals all in lock step focusing on a single goal. That’s like saying all Christians agree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denomination
Most of the big environmental organizations are corrupted at the top because they got in bed with corporations. The strategy is to give them just enough small emotionally fulfilling victories to feel good and not have a full scale revolt. Lots of smoke and mirrors and green washing. For example, while they were distracted protesting Keystone XL pipeline, Obama’s buddy uncle Warren’s railroad was making a killing transporting oil. Who is the biggest donor of 350.org?
http://wrongkindofgreen.org/
PrestonSturges on Tue, 21st Apr 2015 12:28 pm
I think that was a good example of “whiny.”