The Death of Environmentalism

Coming from the opposite political spectrum as the authors, I was quite skeptical reading this piece; it took me quite a while before I understood what this paper is actually about.

This paper is not about Environmentalism, except peripherally. Indeed, if one takes out any mention of environmentalism and replaces it with inequality, poverty, famine, overpopulation, child mortality, racism, sexism or any of the other easily identifiable crises that currently plague humanity, the paper would make equal sense.

This paper is about politics. Specifically, the paper lays out suggestions for environmentalists to achieve policy objectives through a variety of means – alliances with other left wing political power brokers, reframing issues and other techniques. Essentially, the paper makes the the case that environmentalism shouldn’t be about caring about the environment, but about passing legislation that gets things done – that achieves the policy objectives of the environmentalists. It is not enough to be in favor of something – one must also pass laws to enforce those views.

The great thing about this paper is that the organizational changes and strategies that it advocates are open to anyone – to any group. If you care about politics at all and want to see how it really functions, this is a good place to start.

The Death of Environmentalism[pdf]