I have long considered myself an environmentalist. Growing up with a father who is a product of enviro-populist 1970s Minnesota, I was always taught the importance of environmental stewardship. Now, with spare time spent rambling through the woods with the Outdoors Club, and class time spent on majors in Environmental Science and Environmental Thought and Practice, I more than ever understand the dire situation in which Spaceship Earth finds itself.
The point I wish to make may seem strange for an environmentalist, but it is nonetheless important: that the sustainability and responsibility-based environmental advocacy community is the most significant impediment to environmental reform. What? Not our seemingly environmentally regressive legislature? Not rabid American consumerism? No. Neither.
U.S. Naval Academy professor Howard Ernst provides the argument’s framework. In his book, “Fight for the Bay,” Ernst categorizes environmental values into three groups: Cornucopian, Light Green and Dark Green. Cornucopians believe humans are inherently separate from nature and technological advancement and the free market will organically address environmental issues as they arise. They are often considered non-environmentalists. Light Greens are responsibility-based environmental advocates. Light Green ideals drive programs such as “Save the ____ (Whales, Bay etc.),” LEED Certification and the sustainability movement at large. While most Light Greens do sincerely care about the environment, they do not go so far as to say environmentally conscious action should be more than a responsibility. Pushing further, Dark Greens believe every human has the right to clean air, clean water and vibrant natural resources in public spaces. This core tenet of Dark Green philosophy leads them to throw their advocacy capital toward real, toothed environmental policy reform. Unlike Light Greens, their goal is not to convince or incentivize others to make environmentally conscious decisions. Rather, they want to create legal ramifications for not doing so, because failure to do so infringes on the rights of others.
If a poll were to be taken asking which group’s actions most inhibit long-term environmental health, surely a preponderance of participants would point at Cornucopians. But is that so? No. Light Greens are the true enemies of honest environmentalism. It’s not your SUV-driving, penny loafer-wearing, environmentally apathetic type people, but rather your Chaco-sporting, hybrid-driving, Green Grounds-sticker-on-their-Mac type folks who are obliterating America’s odds of powerful environmental reform. The latter salve their, and others’, environmental consciousness through light green advocacy and lifestyle, but ultimately have little to no impact on creating the only real change that can preserve our natural splendor: legislative reform.
Historically, America’s greatest environmental victories have risen from the ashes of environmental disaster. When a century of industrial pollution combined with a spark to set Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River on fire in 1969 (and multiple other times), public outrage translated into the Clean Water Act, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the Environmental Protection Agency: some of the most important pieces of environmental legislation in our history. When utterly unregulated Chlorofluorocarbon emissions tore a hole in the ozone, public outcry pretty immediately led to the signing of the Montreal Protocol. Is it bad to pollute a river so morbidly it catches fire, or tear a hole in the protective layer of our atmosphere? Yes. But the long-run benefits of the resultant environmental protections far outweigh the short-term costs of those isolated events.
Since Cornucopian values invariably lead to natural catastrophe, and environmental catastrophes yield institutional environmental protections, Cornucopians can indirectly be credited with some of America’s Darkest Green triumphs. Conversely, Light Green movements like Green Grounds, Sustainability at the University and every other toothless, responsibility-based initiative expend limited and valuable public environmental concern on low-impact programs. This comes at the great expense of moving toward stronger enforceable protections.
What makes Light Green values so insidious is that they actually do make some positive change. Responsibility-based advocates do genuinely convince others to make more environmentally conscious lifestyle choices. These changes only slow human impact on the environment. They draw out the deterioration over a longer period of time so that the same tipping point will ultimately be reached, but shifting baseline syndrome means no single generation will experience rapid enough degradation to instate meaningful change that will prevent us from ever reaching that tipping point.
Before I step on too many toes, let me clarify that I am in no way condemning sustainable lifestyles — only advocacy. Choosing to live simply, own a small home, buy local and/or used, go veggie or bike to work is enormous. Those choices preserve our planet’s resources without diverting political capital from rights-based environmental policy measures. Indeed, if you are uninvolved in the advocacy community, then this article — while hopefully interesting to you intellectually — is not intended to translate into change in your life.
Ultimately, people’s values are near impossible to change. So why try? Environmentalists’ efforts ought not focus on urging others to adopt green lifestyle and values, but rather should move toward creating a policy structure that allows everyone to exercise his own lifestyle choices and values within a framework that ensures a habitable Planet Earth is here to stay.
Jeremy Kemp is a third-year in the College.
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