It is a commonplace of politics that a party that shines when functioning as the “loyal opposition” is frequently incapable of governing when it finally assumes power. The underlying reason, of course, is that functioning in opposition -- when one is not responsible for programmatic execution and one’s casual remarks are not likely to roil foreign relations and financial markets -- requires different skills and mindsets than actually governing.
This observation has significant implications for environmentalists, whether in NGOs or within firms. For modern environmentalism is largely the classic “loyal opposition”: it was born in opposition to late industrial society, and had to fight hard against powerful economic and political forces for its formative years.
While the results of that effort -- cleaner air and water, higher levels of concern about environmental issues globally -- are both apparent and desirable, the environmental movement is having significant adjustment problems even as it succeeds. Though it excels in attack and opposition, it falters badly in governing. (One must not overgeneralize, however: notable exceptions include NGOs such as
Resources for the Future and the
World Resources Institute.)
Consider how many groups, especially the deeper-green ones, require an air of crisis to operate: admitting success threatens their very existence. So, if crises don’t exist, they must be manufactured, and risks that may be manageable at a relatively low cost to society must be made to appear far larger and more dangerous than they really are. This dynamic carries the danger of the “chicken little” syndrome: people get so used to claims that “the sky is falling” that they ignore all environmental problems, even the real ones. More subtly, this skews the allocation of resources, with very real and undesirable impacts. No one thinks of the poverty that could have been eased by funds spent on unneeded environmental regulation.
Or consider the opposition of deeper-green NGOs to technology. In the global warming negotiations, for example, many environmentalists sweep virtually all technological solutions off the table. Geoengineering projects that could potentially mitigate the effects of enhanced CO2 in the atmosphere are not even allowed on the agenda. (The point is not that such schemes aren’t problematic; the point is that even discussing them has been stifled a priori). Biotechnology as an effective means of developing biological carbon sequestration systems (rapidly growing tree plantations, for example) is also unacceptable, both as a specific solution and as a general technology. Nuclear power: completely unacceptable. Geophysical carbon sequestration, permitting use of cheap coal reserves to help developing countries grow their economies, or iron fertilization of oceanic plankton to absorb carbon: unacceptable. The point isn’t that such options don’t need vetting -- of course they do. The point is that, for ideological reasons, they are not even to be considered.
Why is this? In large part, the reason appears to be that such techno-fixes don’t require people (especially in the rich West, and especially the U.S.) to change their lifestyles. In other words, as success has been achieved in many areas, the focus of environmentalism has shifted to social engineering.
This sign of ideological “loyal opposition” is made more powerful by the aggregation in the environmental movement of various pieces of anticapitalist ideologies that have been forced undercover by the failure of Marxist-Leninist states. If one wants to oppose capitalism and globalization, deep-green environmentalism is about the only good platform left.
But this is dangerous for the environment. People in both developed and developing countries support environmental quality. Many of them, if they realize they are being “socially engineered” to fit the deep-green ideology of the moral life, will, however, react strongly and negatively -- and the “baby” (of responsible environmental management) may be thrown out with the bathwater.
It is now time to develop a more mature, responsible environmentalism. Folks, we won. Get over it.
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Brad Allenby is VP, Environment, Health and Safety at AT&T; an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Virginia Engineering School; and Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. The opinions expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily of any institution with which he is associated.