Environmentalism and Political Philosophy Archives
Last week Breakthrough co-founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus returned to Yale University for a retrospective on their seminal 2004 essay, "The Death of Environmentalism." In their speech they argued that the critical work of rethinking green politics was cut short by fantasies about green jobs and "An Inconvenient Truth." The latter backfired -- more Americans started to believe news of global warming was being exaggerated after the movie came out -- the former made false promises that could not be realized by cap and trade. What is an earnest green who cares about global warming to do now? In this speech, Nordhaus and Shellenberger reflect on what went so badly awry, and offer 12 Theses for a post-environmental approach to climate change.
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by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
It is a great pleasure to be here at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies for this retrospective on "The Death of Environmentalism." In early 2005 Yale invited us to debate that essay, and since then the School has continued to demonstrate a genuine interest in what our friend and colleague Peter Teague has taken to calling ecological innovation. You train your students to ask hard questions -- we saw this first hand in 2010 Breakthrough Fellow and Yale School Masters candidate David Mitchell -- and your flagship publication, Yale360, is publishing some of the most interesting green thinkers today. We are grateful once again for this opportunity to reflect on the nearly seven years since we wrote our essay, and make some new arguments about what the green movement must do now.
Seven years ago the two of us started interviewing America's environmental leaders with the intention of writing a report on the politics of global warming for the October 2004 meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. We came away from the experience deeply disappointed. Not one of the environmental leaders we interviewed articulated a compelling vision or strategy for dealing with the challenge. None expressed much interest in rethinking their assumptions about the problem or the solutions. What we heard again and again during our interviews were the same old riffs that green leaders had been repeating since the late 1980's. Global warming would be solved through the same kinds of policies that we had used to address past pollution problems such as acid rain. Most were confident that John Kerry was, with their help, about to be elected president, and the biggest funders in the movement told us they were just a few steps away from passing cap and trade legislation.
That October we delivered our paper, "The Death of Environmentalism," at the Environmental Grantmakers Association conference. While leaders at environmental philanthropies and national green groups hoped that the debate the essay started would just go away, "The Death of Environmentalism" struck a cord with many others and sparked a spirited debate. Many took the paper's arguments personally and, without question, the most common reaction to our essay was "I'm not dead." Our friend Adam Werbach gave a speech called "Is Environmentalism Dead," wherein he suggested that environmentalists make common cause with a broader coalition of progressive interests in hopes of building a broader and more diverse movement. And Yale's own Gus Speth questioned whether capitalism itself was compatible with ecological sustainability and suggested a radical shift in values was required to deal with the problem.
Continue reading "The Long Death of Environmentalism" »
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In an effort to develop a truly effective post-cap and trade climate strategy, policy is not the only aspect that requires deep reflection - philanthropists, too, must reconsider the best way to channel grants in order to successfully fund solutions to climate and energy challenges. Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy Jesse Jenkins recently spoke to a foundation about re-thinking philanthropic efforts in a post-cap and trade policy environment, offering insight into how policy makers, activists, and philanthropists, alike, must re-orient away from the focus on limits and toward an approach that harnesses human ingenuity to directly confront the scale of the global climate and energy challenge.
The transcription of the talk is below:
Continue reading "The Future of Philanthropy in a Post-Cap and Trade World" »
Frequently Asked Questions about a new climate policy framework focused centrally on energy innovation.
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Update (Jul 16, 2010): Expanding on a Washington Post op-ed, Vinod Khosla delineates his argument "about the deficiencies of an isolated cap-and-trade or carbon-pricing bill," and joins the climate technology consensus. Khosla writes, "If we want to make a significant difference, we need to get on the path to reducing carbon worldwide by 80 percent now by focusing on what I call "carbon reduction capacity building" -- in other words, we need to develop radical carbon-reduction technologies. A utility cap (or a carbon price) won't build capacity -- it will just increase our utility costs and decrease our manufacturing competitiveness without any increase in our technological competitiveness. On the other hand, although a policy that promotes capacity building will increase research investments in the short term, it will likely decrease overall electricity costs in the medium to long run (through the magic of competition, technology and regulatory certainty), while simultaneously reducing carbon. Disruptive technologies require investment; they don't come from the status quo."
Update (Jul 14, 2010): Other observers have reached similar conclusions about the faltering pollution paradigm. Walter Russell Mead and Clive Crook weigh in on "The Big Green Lie" but can't agree on what it is. Mead argues that it is "that the green movement is a source of coherent or responsible counsel about what to do" while Crook argues that "it's the diminished credibility of the claim that we have a problem in the first place." But both agree that cap and trade and the effort to establish a global carbon pollution regime are dead. Meanwhile, Newsweek's Stefan Theil observes that "the whole concept of radical, top-down global targets is coming under scrutiny" and suggests that the "new climate realism" will "look at other options beyond the current set of targets" and "include a broader mix of policies" including "a shift of subsidies into research and development" and "greater efforts to adapt society to a warmer climate."
Update (Jul 10, 2010): See Andrew Pendleton and Matthew Lockwood of the UK-based IPPR think tank response to Alex Evans' contention that real action on climate will only occur after a major global warming disaster. "There is simply no reason to believe that a climate shock big enough to bring about major changes in thinking will come along before we reach a tipping point (how would we know?)" they write. "Climate change is by its nature long-term and insidious, more like a frog in a warming pot than a sudden Anschluss."
The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation to make clean energy cheap. The new framework begins from the understanding that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. But hard and important questions are being asked of the new investment-and-innovation paradigm. How is it different from just increasing subsidies for clean energy? How can we be sure it will reduce emissions? What role should carbon pricing play? Here Breakthrough Institute answers frequently asked questions of the climate technology paradigm and responds to challenges raised by Alex Evans on the left and Robert Michaels on the right, among others, who have taken aim at Breakthrough's and Bill Gates' proposals, respectively.
By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has not reduced emissions and is quickly fading as the central effort to decarbonize European economies. The UN process is becoming a forum for nations to compare and coordinate national policies and measures, not create or enforce a binding global treaty. And it is now clear that, if energy legislation passes the U.S. Senate, it will not create an economy-wide cap-and-trade system, nor will it increase the deployment of clean energy.
Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation. This consensus begins with the recognition that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. No nation -- not even the wealthiest in Europe -- is willing to price carbon enough to cover the difference. Until the technology gap is closed, little will be done to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Continue reading "The Emerging Climate Technology Consensus" »
The way we frame society's problems informs how we choose to respond to them. Leigh Ewbank argues that carbon dioxide should not be described as pollution.
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Cross posted from the ABC (Australia Broadcasting Company)
By Leigh Ewbank, Breakthrough Fellow
RECENTLY, THE AUSTRALIAN Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) released Creating Jobs - Cutting Pollution, a new report that investigates how reducing our carbon dioxide output will benefit the Australian economy. Not surprisingly for me, the report finds that our transition to a clean energy economy yields excellent job-creation prospects for Australia. But amid this positive economic forecast is a framing of climate change that has several limitations and implications for policy.
Creating Jobs - Cutting Pollution (pdf) frames climate change as a pollution problem. This frame is consistent with the title of the Rudd government's chief climate change policy, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and is a dominant way of communicating the problem of climate change in Australia.
The pollution frame shows how we understand, or in this case misunderstand, the phenomenon. What is meant by pollution in the context of climate change? Does the same language used for sewage overflows, chemical leaks, and oil spills adequately communicate the steps needed to address the challenge?
Continue reading "Why CO2 should not be considered pollution" »
In part 2, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Siddhartha Shome expounds on the scientific and anti-scientific basis of environmentalism, explaining the role of morality in the effort to mitigate climate change.
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To read Part 1 click here.
 GE Food for Thought On climate, Greens point to the science, but on GE crops, many find science unconvincing. By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Siddhartha Shome
The Scientific Basis of Environmentalism
Modern American environmentalism was born in 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Carson was a scientist and much of the book is a scientific argument about the harmful effects of chemical pesticides.
The book is replete with scientific data, quotes from scientists, and scientific reasoning. In fact, the entire concluding chapter is an impassioned plea to adopt new biology based breakthrough technologies to replace chemical pesticides.
According to Carson,
A truly extraordinary variety of alternatives to the chemical control of insects is available. Some are already in use and have achieved brilliant success. Others are in the stage of laboratory testing. Still others are little more than ideas in the minds of imaginative scientists, waiting for the opportunity to put them to the test. All have this in common: they are biological solutions, based on understanding of the living organisms they seek to control, and of the whole fabric of life to which these organisms belong. Specialists representing various areas of the vast field of biology are contributing - entomologists, pathologists, geneticists, physiologists, biochemists, ecologists - all pouring their knowledge and their creative inspirations into the formation of a new science of biotic controls.
Carson characterized chemical pesticides of the time as "Neanderthal" technologies, belonging to the "stone age of science". Clearly, the implication was not that we should replace chemical pesticides with even more ancient Jurassic-era technologies, but rather that we supplant them with advanced biology-based breakthrough technologies that are more environmentally friendly.
Continue reading "Green VS. Green, Part 2" »
Greens argue that the scientific evidence in support of climate change tell us we must take action yet they simultaneously ignore potential solutions -- like nuclear power and GE food -- despite scientific evidence that they are useful tools. In the first part of a two post series, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Siddhartha Shome discusses this perplexing Green paradox.
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To read Part 2 click here.
By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Siddhartha Shome
 Denmark Dispute Greens tout Denmark as a renewable mecca, but Sweden -- powered largely by hydro and nuclear -- has a far less carbon intense energy mix. Here's a pop quiz. A, B, C, and D are four rich industrialized countries in Western Europe with similar living standards. Country A's carbon dioxide emissions stand at 9.24 tonnes per capita per year. The corresponding figures for countries B, C, and D are 5.81, 5.62, and 5.05 tonnes a year, respectively.
Can you guess which of these four countries has become the darling of the environmental movement, hailed as a model for a low carbon economy?
It is country A, Denmark -- even though its per capita CO2 emissions are almost twice as much as countries B (France), C (Switzerland), and D (Sweden).
Continue reading "Green VS. Green, Part 1" »
A collection of Nordhaus and Shellenberger's post- Break Through writings, from September 2007 to Spring 2009. ( PDF)
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 Download the PDF here.
Originally published at The New Republic
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In this week's New Republic, Ted and Michael argue that the green bubble has popped -- and that's a good thing. Characterized by both fear of the apocalypse and the desire for transcendence, the green cultural moment that began with "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006 and ended in the Great Recession of 2009 carried in it a dark, anti-modern impulse that liberals and progressives need to abandon if we are to create a politics grounded in prosperity, freedom, democracy.
Sometime after the release of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, environmentalism crossed from political movement to cultural moment. Fortune 500 companies pledged to go carbon neutral. Seemingly every magazine in the country, including Sports Illustrated, released a special green issue. Paris dimmed the lights on the Eiffel Tower. Solar investments became hot, even for oil companies. Evangelical ministers preached the gospel of "creation care." Even archconservative Newt Gingrich published a book demanding action on global warming.
Green had moved beyond politics. Gestures that were once mundane--bringing your own grocery bags to the store, shopping for secondhand clothes, taking the subway--were suddenly infused with grand significance. Actions like screwing in light bulbs, inflating tires, and weatherizing windows gained fresh urgency. A new generation of urban hipsters, led by Colin Beavan, a charismatic writer in Manhattan who had branded himself "No Impact Man," proselytized the virtues of downscaling--dumpster-diving, thrift-store shopping, and trading in one's beater car for a beater bike--while suburban matrons proudly clutched copies of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and came to see the purchase of each $4 heirloom tomato at the farmer's market as an act of virtue.
For those caught up in the moment, the future seemed to promise both apocalypse and transcendence in roughly equal measure. The New York Times and San Francisco magazine ran long feature stories on the uptick of upper-middle- class professionals who worried to their therapists about polar bears or who dug through the trash cans of co-workers to recycle plastic bottles, as though suffering from a kind of eco-OCD. At the same time, folks like Pollan and Beavan provided a vision of green living that seemed to offer not just a smaller carbon footprint but a better life. Amid the fear was the hope that the ecological crisis would bring us together and make us happier.
And then, almost as quickly as it had inflated, the green bubble burst.
Read the rest here
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Al Gore just updated his prescription for fighting climate change. Now other environmentalists have to follow his lead. ... Nordhaus and Shellenberger in The New Republic.
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In a New York Times op-ed published on the first Sunday after Barack Obama's presidential election, Nobel prize winner Al Gore shifted from his longstanding focus on regulating carbon pollution to advocating direct government investments in clean energy as the best way to deal with climate change. Gore is the country's most prominent spokesperson on climate change and a shift in his thinking in reaction to new economic and political circumstances is highly significant.
Of Gore's five recommendations to President-elect Obama, the first four are for investment--in solar thermal plants, energy efficiency, a new electrical grid, and in electric cars--and only the final is for regulation, establishing a price for carbon. But even on this last point, Gore was far from aggressive, suggesting merely that the United Nations meeting to replace to Kyoto treaty in Copenhagen next year should result in countries agreeing to "invest together in efficient ways."
Read the full article...
Amid the energy crisis, Democrats are losing the high ground on the environment to a GOP that is pushing oil drilling. Nordhaus and Shellenberger in the LA Times.
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As the election enters its endgame, Democrats and their environmental allies face a political challenge they could hardly have imagined just a few months ago. America's growing dependence on fossil fuels, once viewed as a Democratic trump card held alongside the Iraq war and the deflating economy, has become a lodestone instead. Republicans stole the energy issue from Democrats by proposing expanded drilling -- particularly lifting bans on offshore oil drilling -- to bring down gasoline prices. Whereas Barack Obama told Americans to properly inflate their tires, Republicans at their convention gleefully chanted "Drill, baby, drill!" Obama's point on conservation and efficiency was lost on an electorate eager for a solution to what they perceive as a supply crisis.
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Nordhaus and Shellenberger in The New Republic. ( PDF)
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The introduction to the Nordhaus and Shellenberger's full length successor to the Death of Environmentalism. ( PDF)
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Green groups may carp, but the the truth is the book could turn out to be the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring."
Download the PDF here.
Nordhaus and Shellenberger in the San Francisco Chronicle.
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The fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has once again grabbed national headlines as supporters of oil development are using an unrelated defense budget bill to authorize drilling in the refuge.
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Nordhaus and Shellenberger in the American Prospect. ( PDF)
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Nordhaus and Shellenberger in the New York Times. (PDF)
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Nordhaus and Shellenberger famously declare environmentalism dead, igniting a firestorm of controversy. ( PDF)
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Nordhaus and Shellenberger famously declare environmentalism dead, igniting a firestorm of controversy. (PDF)
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