> Environmentalism suffers from the same "purity test" mindset as other things these days.
Keep in mind that environmentalists speak with many voices because they are concerned about different aspects of the environment. Keep in mind that there are many charlatans who will gladly sell something as environmentally friendly when it is not or when it is simply a delaying tactic, so some environmentalists view most claims with extreme skepticism. Keep in mind that there are many environmentalists who believe that we should be setting higher targets.
We shouldn't be painting any group with a singular brush.
> Climate and environmental concern were dismissed and attacked for decades.
Part of the reason is that the "green" movement has a long history of promoting de-industrialization and generally opposing human flourishing, using "nature" as a type of proxy for this anti-human, anti-development sentiment. Some examples:
* rigid opposition to nuclear power, which continues until the present. We could have moved completely off fossil fuels for electricity production if it were not for the green movement.
* the "environmental" regulations pushed through by the green movement were written with the aim of making development more expensive, resulting in the high price of housing as developers are sued into oblivion in disputations over environmental impact reports.
* the green movement is responsible for our disastrous forest management practices, resulting in thousands of deaths and massive ecological destruction by making it prohibitively expensive to harvest timber from federal lands. See, e.g. https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article25495772...
* prominent leaders in the green movement have gone on record wishing for mass culling of humanity in order to "save the planet". The most notorious example would be Prince Phillip, fantasizing that he would be reincarnated as a virus to wipe out millions of people in order to help the environment. See, e.g. https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/308...
* Absurd crusades such as trying to ban plastic straws, plastic grocery bags, or promoting wasteful recycling programs that are not backed by any rational basis and cause more harm than good.
* Opposition to modern agricultural practices such as use of fertilizer, GMO crops, etc, that allow billions of people to eat in the name of a kind of unscientific primitive romanticism.
* The methods of various "pro environment" groups involving tactics such as domestic terrorism (including murder) to blocking highways as privileged activists lie down in public spaces and sob to "save the planet" turn off a lot of people and cause them to discount what environmentalists have to say.
> Sure, extreme claims will hurt credibility when they don’t pan out.
This has already happened. There really doesn't seem to be much in the way of quality control when it comes to wild claims being made, which leads people to discount all the claims.
I hope this is satire. "It might royally fuck up the environment, but I've been so manipulated by marketing, that if I don't rub microscopic plastic on my body, I just feel so... unclean... guys, guys? Where are you going?"
The 'sterilized' sand bit at the end was a nice touch too, alluding to the dominant scorched earth policy we have in regards to shaping the environment in ways we (mistakenly, deludedly) think will be most conducive to our well-being.
This term is becoming overinclusive to the point of uselessness. Greenwashing implies deception. If Apple were buying nonsense carbon credits and claiming that was renewable energy, that would be greenwashing. If actually deploying renewable energy is greenwashing, then everything is greenwashing.
> leading to resentment and rejection of environmentalism as a whole
I think people like this because it explains why the "other side" doesn't just listen to their arguments and follow their prescriptions on how to live exactly.
Meanwhile, these other people live _in_ the environment, and so they're obviously concerned about it at some level.
My read is that "environmentalism" is used as a "bully plank" and people are rather tired of being manipulated for the ends of elites without any accountability for their policy failures and so generally tend to react quite negatively when it is naively brought into any conversation.
>Because consider how much time you spend trying to not harm the environment in your free time: shopping for sustainable products, bringing your reusable cup, recycling.
That's saying that people should share your views on politics, which is not rational.
> these people surely can’t look at an open pit mine, a plastic-filled landfill, and a smoke-spewing industrial plant and think that’s somehow good for the environment?
You think they look at things of their own volition or what? They just rail against the concept holistically and label everything lefty propaganda that's even vaguely adjacent
> Environmental action, at its heart, is therefore anti-capitalist. Environmentalists, whether directly or indirectly, are calling for the dismantling of an economic system which is mining, fishing and burning the planet to oblivion. They are calling for the end of billionaires, the end of banks, the end of oil companies and the end of consumerism — which is why environmental protest is so dangerous to power and to the wealth that pulls its puppet strings.
> The "Earth mother" or whatever the fuck will be fine, we are doing all of this for ourselves and our own standards of living and aesthetic values and nothing more, so why pretend otherwise?
I consider myself very much on the side of "environmental protection", but it's always been clear to me that our goal is protect humanity, and secondarily, other animal species (and that means protecting the plant species). Why else would we be doing this? I don't think anyone is pretending otherwise other than a few fringe people (there are always some fringe people no matter which way you look).
> How would some middle- and upper middle classes making eco-friendly alterations to their lives prevent e.g. the destruction of south-eastern Amazonia for farming?
Well, the obvious way would be that they are no longer consuming the beef or other products of destructive south-eastern Amazonia farming, eh?
My question is how do eco-friendly lifestyles go mainstream to the point where the pressure to destroy the environment begins to ease up?
> The reason for my irritation is that I find your view complacent.
Let me reassure you that I'm anything but complacent.
> A few affluent people being more hippyish mainly helps those people feel better.
That's not what I'm advocating here.
The problem I'm pointing out is exactly that ecology is thought of as "hippyish". Gabe Brown isn't a hippie, nor are these folks:
"Homestead Paradise: got barren land, boosted it at a profit"
> Mark and Jen Shepard bought a degraded corn farm in Viola, Wisconsin, and began to slowly convert it from row-crops back to a native oak savanna that would become one of the most productive perennial farms in the country.
That was back in the day. Now they too want you to consume, just "green" products.
reply