Since no one wants
to eat or drink poison or breathe dirty air that leads to diseases, we are all
united by at least a minimum degree of desire for environmental protection. To
some extent, we demand it as a fundamental right. As a recognized public good,
environmental protection becomes necessary to some extent. Most often the
arguments about environmental protection involve where to put the line between
what will be acceptable and what will be not acceptable, and what will be the
consequences for crossing that line. Precautionists favor a line that will make
many things unacceptable if they even hint at environmental impact, while
others argue that such pre-emptive non-approval would be unnecessarily dangerous
to our economy as well as impede further understanding of environmental
impacts. Another way to see environmentalism is to separate views into catastrophic
and non-catastrophic narratives. Both extremes: catastrophists and so-called
climate deniers seem to be more driven and unfortunately more influential than
the more moderate majority. Bad news sells better.
This post was
spurred by a November article in Compact Magazine by Holly Jean Buck, a sociology
professor at the University of Buffalo, entitled ‘The Rise of Green MAGA.” I
thought her name sounded familiar, then I figured it out by looking at the
books she had written. One is on geoengineering and climate impact restoration.
The other is entitled ‘Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough’,
published in 2021. Then I recalled I had written about her book description in
my 2021 book ‘Sensible Decarbonization.’ I offered her description as an example
of an overly radical view that was demanding unrealistic, authoritarian, and
socialist measures to address climate change. I still agree with that assessment.
The book description is reproduced below:
“Ending the fossil fuel industry is the only credible
path for climate policy. Around the world, countries and companies are setting
net-zero carbon emissions targets. But what will it mean if those targets are
achieved? One possibility is that fossil fuel companies will continue to
produce billions of tons of atmospheric CO2 while relying on a symbiotic
industry to scrub the air clean. Focusing on emissions draws our attention away
from the real problem: the point of production. The fossil fuel industry must
come to an end but will not depart willingly; governments must intervene. By
embracing a politics of rural-urban coalitions and platform governance, climate
advocates can build the political power needed to nationalize the fossil fuel
industry and use its resources to draw carbon out of the atmosphere.”
Rural-urban coalitions and platform governance = unrealistic.
Governments must intervene to stop fossil fuel production = authoritarian.
Nationalizing and reorienting the fossil fuel industry = socialistic.
Para-Environmentalism (or Fringe Environmentalism)
Despite the bad
taste in my mouth from her book description, I read Buck’s article about the
rise of Green MAGA and found it interesting. Not that I agreed with everything,
but she did bring up some interesting points. She coined the term para-environmentalism
to depict fringe environmentalism, in the vein of parapsychology or paranormal phenomena.
Like many idea-spheres fringe environmentalism comes in many flavors and from
different perspectives.
Several
researchers and writers have pointed out that the history of environmentalism
has episodes of racism, authoritarianism, and anti-humanist activities. Very
early environmentalists (I believe this was all pre-1950) were sometimes in cahoots
with proponents of eugenics and many Nazis could be considered to be
environmentalists. There is a right-wing-oriented book that highlights Nazi environmentalism and the attempts to associate Nazism with modern left-wing-led environmentalism. Later when
Paul Ehrlich raised the alarm about population dynamics (which proved to be
incredibly wrong) many environmentalists advocated for forced population
control. In countries in Asia, South America, and Africa one result was mass sterilization
campaigns. Thus, both left-wing extremism and right-wing extremism have historically
been associated with environmentalism.
A 2022 segment on
NPR’s All Things Considered was about the intersection between far-right views
and environmentalism. They brought back the Nazi connection to some early environmentalism,
not as evidence of the deluded left, but of the manipulative right. NPR’s Ari Shapiro noted that an anti-Mexican mass
shooter invoked environmentalism in his manifesto:
“In El Paso, Texas, in 2019, a mass shooter killed more
than 20 people and wounded more than 20 others. He told authorities he was
targeting Mexicans, and he also left behind a manifesto - quote, "the
decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future
generations." The shooter wrote, if we can get rid of enough people, then
our way of life can be more sustainable. He titled that manifesto An
Inconvenient Truth, which was also the name of Al Gore's Oscar-winning 2006
documentary about climate change.”
The segment also brought
up anti-immigrant, or xenophobic environmentalism, ideas like immigrants are dumping
trash along the border, tainting the environment. Dr. Dorceta Taylor of Yale
University noted that “the movement to preserve natural spaces in the U.S.
was partly motivated by a backlash against the racial mixing of American cities.”
Apparently, as
the segment notes, the Sierra Club is attempting to address its anti-humanist past.
It’s one-time director David Brower encouraged Paul Ehrlich to write his book
and supported his depopulation strategy. The segment concludes with the opinion
that an apocalyptic view of climate change can be exploited by the far-right
for their own ends.
Joseph Kast and Larry
Salzman in a 2022 article in Sword & Scales about apocalyptic environmentalism
offered the following timeline of failed apocalyptic environmental predictions.
While fact-checking and documenting the past failures of apocalyptic environmentalism is easy and fruitful, it seems to be ineffective at swaying public opinion. For a lot of people, facts don’t matter as much as ideological talking points. There is often a gap between reality and perceived reality. It is prevalent in perception of risk where fears or lack of fears often do not match facts. This is known as the risk perception gap.
David Mountain
writes in a 2021 article in the Skeptical Inquirer, depicting two traditions of
environmentalism, one rational that has led to improved understanding and
improved environmental protection and the other irrational that has led to a
depiction of all environmentalism as being fringe. The risk perception gap is often of the irrational view:
“Modern environmentalism is the heir to both these
traditions: the scientific and pragmatic and the spiritual and nostalgic.
However we choose to measure environmentalism’s success—laws passed, acres
protected, lives improved—the former has been to its merit; the latter,
ultimately, has been to its detriment.”
Environmentalism, or at least its fruits, are
accepted in many ways: Earth Day observances, company websites full of data
about emissions reduction efforts and environmental compliances, and recycling,
for example. In other ways that are seen as more extreme, environmentalists are
depicted as anti-progress tree huggers, which is sometimes true. We have the
Degrowth Movement and other calls to limit economic activity. There are many
examples and books of these two strands of environmentalism: the pragmatic and
catastrophist versions. Read Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, David Wallace-Wells,
etc. for the catastrophist versions and Bjorn Lomborg, Ted Nordhaus and his colleagues
at the Breakthrough Institute, Robert Bryce, etc. for the pragmatic versions.
Mountain argues
that radical environmentalism became widely accepted in the 1990s. He cites
organic farming, acknowledging its benefits, but also noting its limitations, and
he concludes that it is not the solution to sustainable agriculture due to its
low yields and inefficiency which make it require much more land use for the
same yields. The myth that locally grown produce was better for the environment
used to be commonplace but has been proven false in recent decades. He also
points out that pseudo-science has often overlapped with environmentalism at
times in its past from the early 20th-century focus on ideas like
biodynamic farming to the New Age beliefs that merged with environmentalism
in the 1970s and 80s.
As I have pointed
out many times, the fringe or para-environmentalists often end up influencing outcomes
that lead to less environmental protection and more GHG emissions. In addition,
they undermine the sincere efforts of pragmatic environmentalists by generating a backlash against their fringe positions. Buck, in her Green MAGA article, cites
a Pew Research poll that concludes that one-third of Americans (31%) support phasing
out fossil fuels while a slightly higher amount thinks they should never be
phased out (35%). She, judging by her book title, is clearly in the minority. The
graph below shows the questions and breakdown, and the second graph shows opinions
on oil, gas, and mining by political persuasion. Of course, the political
divide is quite clear.
I agree with Buck
that censorship is not the answer:
“Using algorithms to deplatform “climate denial” or
“misinformation” is a misguided response.”
Buck also disses environmentalism’s links to pseudo-science.
I was once talking to an acquaintance, an older woman who had just gotten her
Ph.D., though I forget her subject. She mentioned “fracking” and I told her I
worked in the oil & gas industry, was long involved with it, and was not
worried about its negative effects, hoping to sway her view a bit. She soon started
talking about chemtrails, indicating she strongly believed the wacky hype about
them. Then, I knew that it would be difficult and not worth the effort to convince
her of anything. Buck says that para-environmentalists are not anti-science,
but I think it’s hard not to conclude that they are willing to be anti-science if
it advances their narrative. She notes some views about the pandemic that there
was a perception that health scientists were politicizing health data. I agree
with her assessment that climate scientist Michael Mann is an anti-fossil fuel
partisan. She also brings up chemtrails and conspiracy theories about the government
secretly influencing the weather with modification and geoengineering
experiments, and that Trump’s nominee for HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. has supported
chemtrail conspiracy theories (among many others).
Buck also argues that
para-environmentalism has gone from fringe to mainstream. She gives some
examples where fringe beliefs have penetrated mainstream science, but I do not
agree that this has become widespread.
“The point is that environmentalist academics and
intellectuals have played a role in feeding para-environmental beliefs. And
some of the scholarship on the influence of fossil-fuel companies has
conspiratorial overtones of its own.”
She also thinks that climate politics are locked into this adoption of fringe beliefs and that the desire for people, including academic scholars, to be influencers in the temple of public opinion has been a factor or a perverse incentive. She calls them scholar -influencer-activists:
“An effective strategy for climate politics would address
para-environmental concerns, recognizing the valid reasons people have for
distrusting elites and experts. It would avoid using science to score partisan
points. This isn’t what the prominent voices in the climate movement are
doing—and to an unfortunate extent, they can’t. The climate movement can’t stop
following these counterproductive messengers and put forth more broadly
appealing leaders because of the perverse incentives described previously. If
Mann didn’t exist, digital platforms would elevate someone else to play his
role.”
It seems a bit strange
to me to read someone, a Ph.D. social scientist who certainly seems to have
radical views based on her book title, explain and critique the whole idea of fringe
views.
One thing we can
agree on is that climate adaptation should be prioritized. In fact, across the
spectrum of views, this idea can be agreed upon. I heard an NPR segment the
other day with David Wallace-Wells, who when asked about Trump’s influence on
climate the next four years, decided to talk most about the potential implications
of climate adaptation to help us ride out climate impacts. Buck also paints
adaptation as a priority. Perhaps they are just focusing on the positive, but
people like Bjorn Lomborg and Ted Nordhaus would agree that should be our
priority. The state of New York a few years ago decided to delay climate adaptation
in favor of advancing faster adoption of renewable energy. That was a mistake,
an incorrect reversal of priorities, in my opinion. As I always like to point
out, climate adaptation includes extreme weather adaptation that would still be
needed if climate change was not a concern and the totality of climate
impacts includes the cumulative impacts of natural and anthropogenic climate
change. Thus, adaptation will likely be needed anyway, and since most people can
agree on it, it should be prioritized. I have also pointed out that adaptation would better be depicted as extreme weather preparation, especially for
politicians who are primed to fight back against environmental overreach when using
terms like climate change adaptation, often for good reason.
References:
The
Rise of Green MAGA. Holly Jean Buck. Compact Magazine. November 21, 2024. The Rise of
Green MAGA | Compact
The
far-right and environmentalism overlap is bigger than you think — and growing. Ari
Shapiro, Matt Ozug, and Casey Morell. NPR. All Things Considered. April 1,
2022. The
far-right and environmentalism overlap is bigger than you think — and growing |
Georgia Public Broadcasting
Environmentalism and the Fringe. David Mountain. The Skeptical Inquirer: Volume 45, No. 4. July/August 2021. Environmentalism and the Fringe | Skeptical Inquirer
Apocalyptic
Environmentalists Want Fewer Humans on Earth. Joseph Kast & Larry G.
Salzman. Sword & Scales. December 1, 2022. In-Depth
Outlook About Apocalyptic Environmentalists
1.
What Americans think about an energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
Pew Research Center. Brian Kennedy, Cary Funk, and Alec Tyson. June 28, 2023. How
Americans view transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy | Pew
Research Center
No comments:
Post a Comment