MODERN TIMES
Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 16 Aug 2008
The coming
environmental revolution
One
measure of our destruction of our natural habitat is the abundance of good
books devoted to stopping that destruction. Humankind is deeply pondering its relations with the rest of
nature. Several of these books
will be discussed at a book forum sponsored by Fayetteville's Omni Center, at
Nightbird books in the Mill Building on the corner of 6th and School, on
September 12 at 6:30 pm.
Now
comes a new entry into the field, one destined to change the terms of the
discussion.
James
Gustave (Gus) Speth is a long-time environmental leader. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford and graduate
of Yale Law School, he co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council and
served as its senior attorney from 1970 to 1977, chaired the U.S. Office of
Environmental Quality under President Carter, founded the World Resources
Institute, and is now dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies.
Speth's
2004 book Red Sky at Morning argued that
the environmental movement is losing the battle to preserve the planet,
outlined the essential pathways to sustainability, and broadened
environmentalism's traditional concern for nature to include connections with
society. In his new book The
Bridge at the Edge of the World, Speth goes
much further in this direction, noting again that the planet's destruction
continues without letup and finding the roots of the problem in several of our
culture's sacred cows including corporate capitalism, the growth ethic, and the
environmental movement itself.
The
book is partly a compendium of environmental thinking, a sort of anthology of
environmentalism. For example,
Chapter 5, subtitled "moving to a post-growth society," quotes twentieth-century
economist John Maynard Keynes at length.
Keynes foresaw an eventual end to humankind's struggle for subsistence
and thus an end to the need for growth.
Speth declares that the developed nations are reaching that point and
hence it's time to question the priority of economic growth.
Speth
notes that, although scientists have long known that humans are causing the
wholesale collapse of the natural world, the environmental movement's efforts
to prevent that collapse have failed.
Declaring modern capitalism "out of control," he calls
economic growth "the secular religion of the advancing industrial
societies." Historian J. R.
McNeil is quoted at length, including this: "The overarching priority of economic growth was easily
the most important idea of the twentieth century." In the United States this has led, says
Speth, to growth at any cost, to a "ruthless economy," to ignoring
laid-off workers, bankrupt firms, and crumbling cities.
The
book provides many examples of the incrementalist and compromising nature of
environmentalism over the past four decades. Environmentalists have dealt with effects rather than
underlying causes. It has focused too
much on environmental destruction and too little on the political, social, and
economic causes of that destruction.
He quotes from Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus' famous essay The
Death of Environmentalism, that mainstream
environmentalists are not "articulating a vision of the future
commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis. Instead they are promoting technical policy fixes Éthat
provide neither the popular inspiration nor the political alliances the
community needs to deal with the problem."
Much
of the book discusses the nature of modern capitalism, and the corporation in
particular. Speth believes we
cannot prevent the collapse of nature without an overhaul of corporate
structure. He's not proposing to
overthrow capitalism, but rather to radically humanize the way it works. Current corporate operating principles
such as separation of ownership from management, limited liability, the
maximization of stockholder wealth, externalization of social and environmental
costs, and excessive corporate political power, need changing.
Modern
capitalism faces those who hope for a better world with a disheartening
quandary: Economic growth is
declared the primary virtue, and profit-maximizing corporations dominate our
economy. The only obvious
counterweight is government, yet government is dominated by these same
corporations.
The
solution to this quandary turns out to be similar to the solution proposed by
Bill McKibben in Deep Economy, another
good recent book. Act
locally. Political consciousness
must begin in the neighborhood. It
must be highly participatory, favoring national citizen initiatives and
referendums. Beginning locally,
citizens must organize at regional, national, and global levels.
A
program to get there from here should involve transformation in three major
dimensions: First,
environmentalism must be broadened to the full range of relevant issues,
including politics and "the democratization of wealth." Second, environmentalists must embrace
a program to address the nation's social problems directly and generously.
America's crisis of high poverty rates and concentrated wealth for a tiny
minority poses a threat to our democracy and the environment alike. Third, campaign finance, elections,
lobbying, and other aspects of the political process must be reformed,
including revitalization of unions and other large membership organizations
that give citizens more leverage in the political process.
If
the first watchword of the new environmental politics is "broaden the
agenda," says Speth, the second is "get political." American politics today is failing not
only the environment but also the American people and the world. The transition to sustainability
demands a broad and unified political movement that will come to be seen as the
Environmental Revolution of the twenty-first century. According to Speth, "only such a response is likely to
avert huge and even catastrophic environmental losses."
This
call for an environmental revolution will seem quixotic to many. "The impossible," notes
Speth, "takes a little longer."
He quotes Mahatma Gandhi: "First they laugh at you, then
they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win." And he quotes writer Arundhati
Roy:
Another
world is not only possible.
She
is on her way.
On
a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.