Kristof’s Nightmare

The death of environmentalism

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

3/12/05

http://zeppscommentaries.com/S&E/kristof.htm

Nicholas Kristof, the NY Times columnist, wrote an essay this week called "I Have a Nightmare" in which he discussed how the environmental movement in America has done severe damage to itself by being alarmist and inflexible. He bases his column on a tract, "The Death of Environmentalism"by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, that has been around the internet for the past year. Kristof is mostly correct in what he writes; public perception that environmentalists are mostly reactionary nay-sayers is often justified by people in the movement who constantly preach that this thing or that thing is going to doom us all, and if we don’t address this (often minor) problem immediately, humanity is going to hell in a handbasket. The essay itself discusses the political failure of environmentalism, and discusses what other approaches need to be taken. It’s a must-read for anyone concerned about the health of humanity and our future.

But Kristof also got conned by some of the corporate anti-environmentalist propaganda, and his use of it weakens his arguments some. So before addressing his main point, it’s important to discuss those points where he drank the KoolAid and repeated corporate disinformation.

He mentions, for example, the so-called "global cooling" craze of the 1970s, and like the propagandists at OISM (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a collection of rusty tin shacks out in the middle of nowhere that tried posing itself as a major meteorological research center a few years back) and "Greening Earth Society" (the website of the American Petroleum Institute), supports the argument with that lonely little Newsweek article which says that scientists are concerned that if global cooling occurs, food production might drop. The only trouble is, there never was a global cooling craze. One Newsweek reporter read about speculations on the normal fluctuations in the earth’s climate (which indisputably happen) and wrote a "what if?" story about it. There are no peer-reviewed papers warning that global cooling is nigh, nor were there any huge conferences to discuss what to do about global cooling. Nothing but that one lonely popular magazine article, and scattered pockets of idle speculation.

Global warming, on the other hand, is quite real, and of immense and immediate concern to the scientific community, as it should be for the rest of us. Further – and Kristof veers around this trap – the problem isn’t that global warming is pushing earth’s climate to extremes never seen in the planet’s history. The problem is the RATE of change, the massive effect it will have on agriculture, and the effect that will have on earth’s 6.5 billion people.

Speaking of population, he also notes, as so many anti-environmental sorts have, that the warnings of overpopulation by people like Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson proved not to be as bad – or at least as rapid in coming – as was feared. He writes, ‘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."’

Of course, Ehrlich was actually right. Hundreds of millions of people have starved to death, or died from lack of pure water, in the fifty years since he wrote that. Most were, and are, under the age of five. But billions lived. Nor has the problem gone away just because technology pushed our ability to produce food up by 60%. If global warming reduces food production by 60%, we will see the catastrophe forecast in "The Population Bomb". It will just be thirty years later than Ehrlich expected, is all.

But a lot of Kristof’s frustration is well-founded. A lot of people who say that any oil development at all will destroy the North Slope are doing so completely oblivious to the fact that global warming is utterly transforming the North Slope, oil development or no, and that a lot of noise and energy is going into a fight that will be totally moot in twenty years. I doubt we’ll see banana plantations and beach resorts on the North Slope by 2050, but I also doubt we’ll see reindeer moss and caribou there. There’s also a good possibility that any humans in the area won’t be drilling for oil, but will be hunting for game instead, for food, rather than sport. It’s possible that what was once a nearly Martian landscape will be replaced by a young boreal forest.

I don’t like the idea of drilling in ANWR. Drilling will just be an unnecessary addition to the stress of change the area is beginning to experience. But I think it’s silly and dishonest to pretend that ANWR will be preserved if there isn’t drilling.

Ironically, ANWR led to one of the worst defeats of environmentalism back in 1990 – and it was the environmental movement itself that created that defeat. Shellenberger and Nordhaus in their essay write, "Having gathered 59 votes -- one short of what's needed to stop a filibuster -- Senator Richard Bryan nearly passed legislation to raise fuel economy standards in 1990. But one year later, when Bryan had a very good shot at getting the 60 votes he needed, the environmental movement cut a deal with the automakers. In exchange for the auto industry's opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, environmentalists agreed to drop their support for the Bryan bill. ‘[I]t was scuppered by the environmentalists, of all people,’ New York Times auto industry reporter Keith Bradsher notes bitterly." Had the Bryan bill passed, there would be no pressure to open up ANWR to drilling now.

Global warming has to be treated as a political problem, rather than as some sort of spiritual and moral crisis. It’s one thing to say that there are people who are making a lot of money by dumping carbon into the air and they should stop doing it. What has to happen is that the movement needs to find viable incentives – somewhat more material and realistic than "The panda bears will thank you" – to convince the automakers and oil companies to seek out other approaches. They need to believe that they will benefit more from implementing hybrid technology or hydrogen-powered vehicles or whatever than they would by staying the course. No auto industry exec is going to stand up at a stockholder’s meeting and explain that the reason there aren’t any dividends this quarter is because they dropped their most profitable line of trucks to make the panda bears happy. However, he will be willing to explain to stockholders that they are working on a line of hydrogen-powered cars because tax incentives defray the cost now, and future profits look rosy.

Kristof, Shellenberger and Nordhaus all seem to be saying that a less sensationalist and more pragmatic environmental presence in America is needed if any progress is to be made against the entrenched interests who are benefitting from the status quo.

The framing of global warming seems to me to be a good place to start. Rather than describing it in terms of stronger hurricanes, changed weather patterns and sunken tropical islands, it should be presented as a threat to productivity and a huge setback to the economy, which it will be. It makes possible a coalition between environmentalists and those presently deemed most unlikely to join with environmentalists on much of anything – car makers, oil companies, insurance companies.

You see, they’ve already realized the problems inherent in global warming, and in their own councils, no longer pretend that they have no effect on global warming. They don’t need sanctimonious sorts telling them they are villains, and must pay for what they did.

But they will work with people who will work with them to solve the problem. Outside of the political spotlight is where politics become possible, and it is through politics, rather than outrage and sermons, where the answers are to be found.

Kristoff concludes his essay by writing, "So it's critical to have a credible, nuanced, highly respected environmental movement. And right now, I'm afraid we don't have one."

I’m afraid he’s right.