Most people haven’t noticed the dissolution of environmentalism, nor would they have a clue as to why or when it happened.
Most people haven’t noticed the dissolution of environmentalism, nor would they have a clue as to why or when it happened. The process of its fading was long, fuzzy, disputable but manifold. No single person, issue or movement could be indicted.
For most of us who considered ourselves to be environmental activists, the Sierra Club’s deterioration was masked by the rise of essentially faux activists who seized upon liberal sentiments and manipulated them to the point where words like “climate change” shifted overnight to “climate justice”. This anti-science cliche fulfilled the longstanding belief on the left that only the success and governance of a Marxist-based ideology would emancipate humanity from the domination of capitalism. Social Justice threw everyone else out the window.
Science had no place in this progression. Indeed, legions of leftists spent much time in their journals and classrooms disparaging, even physically attacking, scientists who insisted on the centrality of ecology and evolution in resolving the major issues of the day, i.e. almost all issues except that of war. These “cultural studies” outshouted scientists in academia and slyly inserted themselves into social justice groups and movements, ousting science and elevating human needs at the expense of the rest of the natural world.
There is a profusion of explanations from all parts of the political spectrum. They are for the most part useless because they represent individual analyses, each with its own biases and its own followers. But away to the side, and on its own trajectory, a new movement was born and, most importantly, being adopted by large masses of people who were able to see the holes and the flaws in the ideologies of the extreme left, and above all creating a new polity: a movement intent on preserving the integrity of the natural world and the urgent need to change human societies and principles so that they became the philosophical and moral basis of daily life, legislation and politics.
Most significant in this slow process was a quite deviant diversion: the elevation of minorities to the center of attention, whether of color, gender or ethnicity. Of equal significance is the reason for their abdication from environmental activism: a determination to protect the focus and leadership of their group so that its policies and its ideology in particular would not be diluted or diverted by outside forces even when those were beneficial. This precluded any alliances with other movements or organizations with different objectives. The notion of blacks joining or even working for environmental organizations with different agendas never entered the stage (which didn’t stop them from criticizing these groups for their white complexion and their presumed indifference to racial issues.)
This deliberate distancing from the movements and issues prevalent in the rest of society insured political purity and avoided the real world of competing leadership and issues (which if they had embraced would have allowed the possibility of racial and political diversity)/Activism was therefore based on community and color, not on any broader social issues, and least of all . science. Ideology had triumphed over reason and science. The result was Identity Politics.
Nothing could have been more destructive than the shift from political activism to behavior therapy. It was at its core a Flight From Reason, from science, and from democracy, as all dominant institutions were condemned for not signing on to this dogma. Dissent was smashed to bits. Every tiny bit of society and its governance was indicted on one contrived accusation after another. Whether this differed from the Soviet authoritarian state was not considered. Nor is it today.
The collapse of a once powerful movement is already having dire consequences as environmental laws and regulations are overturned and loud trumpets sound to intensify fossil fuel development. Capitalist ventures no longer hide their claws in charming ads about preserving forests. Raw naked resource rapacity has been let loose. Unbridled fake news creates new issues and new battle fields that cater to all manner of deviant movements. Watching in the wings are hordes of new recruits to anything that will create dissonance.
Maggie Chou of Climate SOS, 2010, posed and answered this question.
“ Why do we need to be concerned with anything other than energy policy? Because we can’t get any action on energy policy (better talk about climate policy, as energy is only a part of it) unless we show that the root causes of all the destruction are the same, and therefore everyone appalled for one reason or the other must unite with us to change the system, take it down or overhaul it, in order to have any chance of enacting a sane climate policy, rather than a collection of false solutions (as you rightly described). Without getting rid of corporate control, your dream climate bill will remain a dream, as corporate interests trump planetary interests. That’s why I’ve now put more time into forming alliances with other social movements, while educating them about the absolute urgency of climate catastrophe.”
It is easy to blame the obvious criminals but even easier to overlook how so many ordinary citizens have been sucked in to participate in (or at least passively accept) campaigns that materially benefit troublemakers rather than the citizens who follow the rules and laws. This is not just a Good Guy vs. Bad Guy battle. Naivete and the swallowing of disinformation and propaganda go hand in hand. The manipulation of human emotions and behavior and the creation of enemies are now part of routine daily life.
Some will take issue with this and prefer a Blame Game. The Democratic Party indeed has failed to call out DEI and identity politics, insisting on the purity of its dedication to the usual social issues such as racism and abortion. The U.S. Green Party declined into oblivion. The media continue their diminution of environmental news to the vanishing point.
A comprehensive reversal of public support for environmentalism is almost completely accomplished. And the general public is overwhelmed by AI, social media and bloated blogs, not to mention an unaccountable government. Perhaps cynics will say that a collapse of some social institutions is inevitable and necessary to start from scratch. But how much time will this take?
And who can we trust to lead us? 