CHAPTER
6 – Why is Environmentalism Rejected?
This
might seem like a strange question when we all would like
to breathe clean air and drink
or swim in clean
water. One problem
is that environmentalism has acquired a bad name, especially
in big-consumer nations such as U.S.A. and Canada. While the
combined population of our two countries makes up only 5%
of the world
population,
our share of world consumption expenditures exceeds 31%. North
Americans, accustomed to a high level of consumption, don’t
want to let any of it slip away, and might even feel subliminal
guilt as well
as denial about it.
Another problem is that people are distracted by what they perceive
to be larger problems, such as wars in the Middle East, insecurity
from terrorism, an unstable economy, lack of health care, or even
the health of our social security system. During the 2004 presidential
election in USA, environmental issues ranked only 8th among public
concerns.
A
third problem is disengagement from civic involvement, especially
in USA and Australia, where
the rates of membership
in formal organizations
has fallen, as has the intensity of participation in terms of
meeting attendance and willingness to take on leadership roles.
Meanwhile
informal social interactions – playing cards with neighbors,
going on picnics, and the like – have also declined markedly
in both countries, as have levels of trust among people and in
institutions (1). The data on other prosperous countries are
more encouraging,
although early signs of social disengagement are evident. Organizational
membership remains high in many European nations, but the level
of involvement and of personal interaction has shown declines
in some, and membership is often more transient than in the past.
Even
in Sweden, which appears to have strong social and community
networks, signs of concern are appearing: political engagement
is increasingly
passive, and levels of trust in institutions are declining (1).
Harvard Professor Robert Putnam has identified three features of
American society that may explain a decline in civic engagement:
time limitations, residential sprawl and high rates of television
viewing. All three are linked to high consumption: time pressures
are often linked to the need to work long hours to support consumption
habits, sprawl is a function of car dependence and the desire for
larger homes and properties, and heavy television viewing helps
promote consumption through exposure to advertising and programming
that often romanticizes the consumer lifestyle.
Perhaps
the most important reason is our programmed dedication to
the spirit of free enterprise
and the expansion
of profits. Our
way of life, including our retirement plans, is dependent on
this ethic. Sooner or later the environmentally conscious individual
runs across cost estimates for converting to sustainable (wind
or
solar) forms of energy. These numbers are so large that they
numb the mind, so our encounter with environmental economics
is usually
very brief. However, these estimates by themselves tell only
half the story. What they fail to tell us is the stimulus that
alternative
energy sources would provide to new sectors of the economy and
the huge costs of BAU (business as usual). The latter would
include: building massive dikes to protect coastal cities
from tides,
dealing
with many diseases that will arise because of air and water pollution,
and hiring extra security forces to protect the “haves” from
the “have-nots”, just to name a few (3).
Lastly,
a significant segment of society just doesn’t want
to hear the message. They either resent being told by “environmental
elitists” to change their wasteful ways, or they buy into
Michael Crichton’s famous exhortation, “Let’s
Stop Scaring Ourselves” (Parade, Dec. 5, 2004). In his recent
novel, “State of Fear”, fear of global warming is compared
with the unfounded fear, 100 years ago, of weakening of the human
genome, which led to the much-discredited field of eugenics. People
today are suffering from what might be called “disaster fatigue”,
where global warming is far down on the list of military and economic
problems, while other people, poorly educated in science, simply
don ’t care and don’t
want to know.
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