Environmentalism asa social movement
Environmentalism and environmental movement
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy and social movementregarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the stateof the environment. Environmentalism and environmental concerns are oftenrepresented by the color green. [1]
A concern for environmental protection has recurred indiverse forms, in different parts of the world, throughout history. Forexample, in the Middle East, the earliest known writings concerned withenvironmental pollution were Arabic medical treatises written during the«Arab Agricultural Revolution», by writers such as Alkindus, Costaben Luca, Rhazes, Ibn Al-Jazzar, al-Tamimi, al-Masihi, Avicenna, Ali ibnRidwan, Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, Abd-el-latif, and Ibn al-Nafis. They wereconcerned with air contamination, water contamination, soil contamination,solid waste mishandling, and environmental assessments of certain localities.[3][4]
In Europe, King Edward I of England banned the burning ofsea-coal by proclamation in London in 1272, after its smoke had become aproblem.[5][6] The fuel was so common in England that this earliest of namesfor it was acquired because it could be carted away from some shores by thewheelbarrow. Air pollution would continue to be a problem in England,especially later during the Industrial Revolution, and extending into therecent past with the Great Smog of 1952.
Environmentalism can also be seen as a social movementthat seeks to influence the political process by lobbying, activism, andeducation in order to protect natural resources and ecosystems. Theenvironmental movement includes the conservation and green politics, is adiverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmentalissues.
An environmentalist is a person who may speak out aboutour natural environment and the sustainable management of its resources throughchanges in public policy or individual behavior by supporting practices such asnot being wasteful. In various ways (for example, grassroots activism andprotests), environmentalists and environmental organizations seek to give thenatural world a stronger voice in human affairs.[2]
Environmentalists advocate the sustainable management ofresources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policyand individual behavior. In its recognition of humanity as a participant in(not enemy of) ecosystems, the movement is centered on ecology, health, andhuman rights.
The environmental movement is represented by a range oforganizations, from the large to grassroots. Due to its large membership,varying and strong beliefs, and occasionally speculative nature, theenvironmental movement is not always united in its goals. At its broadest, themovement includes private citizens, professionals, religious devotees,politicians, and extremists.
The roots of the modern environmental movement can betraced to attempts in nineteenth-century Europe and North America to expose thecosts of environmental negligence, notably disease, as well as widespread airand water pollution, but only after the Second World War did a wider awarenessbegin to emerge.
The US environmental movement emerged in the latenineteenth and early twentieth century, with two key strands: protectionistssuch as John Muir wanted land and nature set aside for its own sake, whileconservationists such as Gifford Pinchot wanted to manage natural resources forexploitation. Among the early protectionists that stood out as leaders in themovement were Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and George Perkins Marsh. Thoreauwas concerned about the wildlife in Massachusetts; he wrote Walden; or, Life inthe Woods as he studied the wildlife from a cabin. John Muir founded the SierraClub, one of the largest conservation organizations in the United States. Marshwas influential with regards to the need for resource conservation. Muir wasinstrumental in the creation of the world's first national park at Yellowstonein 1872.
During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, several eventsillustrated the magnitude of environmental damage caused by humans. In 1954,the 23 man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon 5 was exposed toradioactive fallout from a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll. The publicationof the book Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson drew attention to the impactof chemicals on the natural environment. In 1967, the oil tanker Torrey Canyonwent aground off the southwest coast of England, and in 1969 oil spilled froman offshore well in California's Santa Barbara Channel. In 1971, the conclusionof a law suit in Japan drew international attention to the effects of decadesof mercury poisoning on the people of Minamata.[2]
At the same time, emerging scientific research drew newattention to existing and hypothetical threats to the environment and humanity.Among them was Paul R. Ehrlich, whose book The Population Bomb (1968) revivedconcerns about the impact of exponential population growth. Biologist BarryCommoner generated a debate about growth, affluence and «flawedtechnology.» Additionally, an association of scientists and politicalleaders known as the Club of Rome published their report The Limits to Growthin 1972, and drew attention to the growing pressure on natural resources fromhuman activities.
Meanwhile, technological accomplishments such as nuclearproliferation and photos of the Earth from outer space provided both newinsights and new reasons for concern over Earth's seemingly small and uniqueplace in the universe.
In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the HumanEnvironment was held in Stockholm, and for the first time united therepresentatives of multiple governments in discussion relating to the state ofthe global environment. This conference led directly to the creation ofgovernment environmental agencies and the UN Environment Program. The UnitedStates also passed new legislation such as the Clean Water Act, the Clean AirAct, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act- thefoundations for current environmental standards.
By the mid-1970s anti-nuclear activism had moved beyondlocal protests and politics to gain a wider appeal and influence. Although itlacked a single coordinating organization the anti-nuclear movement's effortsgained a great deal of attention.[3] In the aftermath of the Three Mile Islandaccident in 1979, many mass demonstrations took place. The largest one was heldin New York City in September 1979 and involved two hundred thousand people;speeches were given by Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader.[4][5][6]
Since the 1970s, public awareness, environmental sciences,ecology, and technology have advanced to include modern focus points like ozonedepletion, global climate change, acid rain, and the potentially harmfulgenetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Free-market environmentalism
Free-market environmentalism is a position that arguesthat the free market, property rights, and tort law provide the best tools topreserve the health and sustainability of the environment. This is in contrastto the most common modern approach of legislation by which the state intervenesin the market to protect the environment. While environmental problems may beviewed as market failures, free market environmentalists argue thatenvironmental problems arise because of:
Laws that override or obscure property rights and thusfail to adequately protect or define those rights; and
Laws governing class or individual tort claims thatprovide polluters with immunity from tort claims, or interfere with thoseclaims in such a way as to make it difficult to legally sustain them.
As a rule, therefore, free-market environmentalistsbelieve that the best way to protect the environment is to allow tort andcontract laws governing and protecting property rights and tort claims toemerge naturally, so that the protection of property no longer suffers from thedefects that give governments, individuals, and corporations perverseincentives to spoil the environment.
Some economists believe that the market is unable tocorrect the negative externalities of industrial production and excessivedepletion of non-renewable resources. In this view, firms receive the fullbenefit of creating their products in a way that generates pollutants but donot bear the full social costs of the increased pollution. They have noeconomic incentive to create products in a way that minimizes pollution andabsent targeted environmental regulations, will continue to do so. This activitywould be rational, because it would be profitable for a firm to overpollute,while letting others absorb the costs of its effects and cleanup. Regarded thisway, opponents of market solutions to the problem of pollution assert thatmarket mechanisms left to their own devices contain built-in incentives forenvironmental degradation. The case for free market valuation is complicated byuneven regulation, e.g. the standards set for recycling (under ResourceConservation and Recovery Act, of 1976) are more strict than the governmentregulation of mining (General Mining Act, 1872).
Ecological economist Robin Hahnel has enumerated what heterms the four basic defects of a market economy with respect to theenvironment as: [1]
overexploitation of common property resources;
overpollution;
too little pollution cleanup; and
overconsumption.
In response to these concerns, economists who prefer thefree-market environmentalist approach argue that:
Overexploitation occurs to the extent of the lack ofownership incentives to care for the property, and that this communalizationeffect occurs to the extent of multiplicity of ownership. Overexploitationreduces the intrinsic and retail value of the property, the effect of which ismost clearly felt by individual owners or through limited co-ownership.
Pollution occurs where and to the extent that victims areprevented or hindered from seeking tort restitution for such aggression.Legislative and Judicial authorities have tended to favor heavy industries overindividual or class action in favor of public property and the common good.
Pollution clean-up also occurs naturally in a free market,because reducing the negative value of a property is a net gain, again leadingto a higher intrinsic or retail value, and thus marketability.
Overconsumption is a flawed concept, because it assumesthat resources are non-renewable. The market, through supply and demand,regulates consumption by adjusting it according to supply. For example, if aresource becomes more scarce, its value increases and thus also its cost. Thisforces consumers to redirect their purchases to alternate resources which arein more plentiful supply. In addition, the higher market value of the resourcecreates an incentive to create more of the commodity, and allows for a greaterexpenditure in doing so.
The prevalence of externalities would have seriousimplications for market efficiency in its static and dynamic dimensions. Ifnegative externalities are unnaccounted for, it would imply that market priceswill not accurately reflect true social opportunity costs, leading tomisallocations of goods. As the elementary economics text book by Baumol andBlinder observes When a firm pollutes a river, it uses some of society'sresources just as surely as when it burns coal. However, if the firm pays forcoal but not for the use of clean water, it is expected that management will beeconomical in its use of coal and wasteful in its use of water.
The standard approach to addressing negative externalitiesis governmental regulation proscribing polluting activities. This approach hasbeen criticized by free-market economists and others as being inefficient andineffective. Furthermore, the demands of regulation seldom appeal to the socialconscience of industries or enterprise owners and violation is often seen aslegitimate business practice.
Critics have noted that studies sponsored by firmsassessing their own activities are invariably biased and typically exemplify anillegitimately narrow focus that ignores a competitive market context and theprevalence of external effects throughout the supply chain. Amoco's attempts atvoluntary measures have met with resistance from the four or five oil refiningcorporations with greater market share, who expressed a preference to be forcedby state regulations before lowering their sulphur content. Following Amoco'sgestures, prominent environmental groups were unimpressed. For example, theEarth Day 2000 report, «Don't Be Fooled» named Amoco as one the top10 «greenwashers» of the year. [2]
While some environmentalists advocate compromises such ascarbon trading schemes, most free-market environmentalists would prefer full accountabilityas dictated by courts that respect the rights of property owners in absoluteterms.
Some free-market proponents, particularly those influencedby the Austrian economic school, such as B.J. Lawson claim that sustainabilityis fundamentally impossible when the money supply exhibits secular inflation.
Some economists argue from the Coase Theorem that, ifindustries internalized the costs of negative externalities they would face anincentive to reduce them, perhaps even becoming enthusiastic about takingadvantage of opportunities to improve profitability through lower costs.Moreover, economists claim this would lead to the optimal balance between themarginal benefits of pursuing an activity and the marginal cost of itsenvironmental consequences. One well-known means of internalizing a negativeconsequence is to establish a property right over some phenomenon formerly inthe public domain. This requires a little abstract thinking in the case ofenvironmental problems as these Coasians are talking about a grant to polluteor to exploit some limited natural phenomenon. This is a sophisticated variantof the polluter pays principle. However, critics have charged that the«theorem» attributed to Coase is of extremely limited practicabilitybecause of assumptions, including that it was theorized to account for adjacenteffects where transaction costs for bargaining agents are typically small, butis ill-suited to real world externalities which have high bargaining costs dueto many factors.
A number of libertarians, such as Rothbardians, reject theproposed Coasian solution as making invalid assumptions about the purelysubjective notion of costs being measurable in monetary terms, and also ofmaking unexamined and invalid value judgments (i.e., ethical judgments). TheRothbardians' solution is to recognize individuals' Lockean property rights, ofwhich the Rothbardians maintain that Wertfreiheit (i.e., value-free) economicanalysis demonstrates that this arrangement necessarily maximizes socialutility.
Proponents of free-market environmentalism use the exampleof the recent destruction of the once prosperous Grand Banks fishery offNewfoundland. Once one of the world's most abundant fisheries, it has beenalmost completely depleted of fish. Those primarily responsible were large«factory-fishing» enterprises driven by the imperative to realizeprofits in a competitive global market.[3] It is contended that if the fisheryhad been owned by a single entity, the owner would have had an interest inkeeping a renewable supply of fish to maintain profits over the long term. Theowner would thus have charged high fees to fish in the area, sharply reducinghow many fish were caught. The owner also would have closely enforced rules onnot catching young fish. Instead commercial ships from around the world racedto get the fish out of the water before competitors could, including catchingfish that had not yet reproduced.
Another example is in the 19th century early gold minersin California developed a trade in rights to draw from water courses based onthe doctrine of prior appropriation. This was curtailed in 1902 by the NewlandsReclamation Act which introduced subsidies for irrigation projects. This hadthe effect of sending a signal to farmers that water was inexpensive andabundant, leading to uneconomic use of a scarce resource. Increasingdifficulties in meeting demand for water in the western United States have beenblamed on the continuing establishment of governmental control and a return totradable property rights has been proposed.
According to Richard L. Stroup, markets in theenvironmental field, in order to function well, require «3-D»property rights to each important resource — i.e., rights that are clearlydefined, easily defended against invasion, and divestible (transferable) byowners on terms agreeable to buyer and seller. The first two rights preventproperty owners from being forced to accept pollution, and the third rightprovides an incentive for owners to be good stewards. [4]
Many free-market environmentalists argue that the problemof regulatory capture whereby large companies play a large role in settingregulations has created a system where things are far too biased in favor oflarge companies. For instance, in the United States lands that could be morevaluably used for tourism are often used for resource extraction because themany disorganized tourists cannot have the same impact on government as the feworganized corporations. If the land was privately held the land owner wouldrealize that tourism would make more of a profit than logging and nature wouldbe preserved.
The implementation of property rights provides governmentswith an opportunity to raise revenues. This has been illustrated by recentauctions of bands of the electromagnetic spectrum for telephony, anotherexample of an attempt to manage a scarce resource through property rightsrather than regulation. Such auctions offer an alternative to conventionaltaxation for funding public spending, by capitalizing the expected rent earnedby the privatized good. Some economists, most notably Henry George in the1870s, have argued that taxes on income and profits represent taxes onproductivity, innovation and creativity and that we should rather tax landrents and externalities such as pollution, consumption of fossil fuels and roadcongestion. Environmental property rights offer a means to shift taxation from«goods» to «bads» and rents.
One example of free market attempt to protect theenvironment is The Nature Conservancy organization. It has been successful inprotecting many sensitive, ecologically important places by simply purchasingthem, although this practice has met with controversy in some areas. In somecases the lands are donated or sold to government agencies for management,while in others the Nature Conservancy itself manages these preserves. BillionaireTed Turner has a similar private program that has seen him buy up tens ofthousands of acres of wilderness around the United States.
There are a number of arguments against free-marketenvironmentalism:
Historically, Tort Law has been of limited efficacy forconfronting environmental problems. According to the World Bank, «tortlaw, based as it is on the protection of individual rights and the need toprove specific injury, has not been a significant means of preventingenvironmental degradation.» [5] Similarly, in «Law in EnvironmentalDecision-Making» legal scholar Jenny Steele notes that in respect toprotection of the environment, «a number of historical studies have assessedthe extent of tort's impact in this respect, to generally criticaleffect.» [6] In the environmental law textbook, «EnvironmentalProtection», Sue Elworth and Jane Holder argue that the most significantlimitation of common law, including tort law «was, and continues to bethat the protection of private property is the rationale of private law and itsmotivation...Environmental protection may be effected through the protection ofproperty rights. But private law is said to act only to protect theindividualized self-interested claim, which considerably constrains legalaction. The main doubt about the ability of private law to provide anappropriate means of protecting the environment is that environmental problemsdemand collective action, there is therefore some resistance to the idea thatindividual rights might contribute to collective progress towards environmentalprotection.» [7] Class action, however, is every bit as capable of directtort-based restitution as individual legal action.
Not all aspects of the public domain are easily«privatisable» in practice. It may be impossible to establishproperty rights on things like air and water that circulate the globe, sostopping air pollution or global warming on an individual basis would be verydifficult. Coasian environmentalists often support carbon trading schemesadvocated by other environmentalist movements. The US Clean Air Act of 1990,for instance, set up a system of emissions trading for sulfur dioxide. TheKyoto protocol also seeks to establish a system of emissions trading for carbondioxide and other greenhouse gases. Rothbardians reject government-imposedemissions trading schemata, and instead maintain that pollution is bydefinition a matter of Lockean property rights being violated, and hence shouldbe handled as a subject of individual or class action tort, as any otherinvasion of property. As long as there is an aggressor and a victim, there is atort.
Some believe that the conservation of endangered speciesis not necessarily achievable using the free market, especially where there islittle economic value in the species in question. For example: there might beonly limited profit to be made from a piece of land by maintaining it as thehabitat of a rare beetle, whereas alternative economic uses for that land(which might be deleterious to the welfare of the beetle) — such as building aparking lot on it — might yield a greater profit. Regardless of the broaderecological importance of the beetle, it is much more likely that the landownerwill prioritize short-term profits to be gained from development, rather than along-term benefit which may be of comparably little (perhaps even imperceptibleon the surface) benefit to himself. Thus, threatened or endangered speciescould be lost by relying on the willingness of individual landowners to take aloss in order to protect them.
A related philosophical objection is that free-marketenvironmentalism is entirely anthropocentric and ignores the «innate»value of nature outside of human perception. (see ecocentrism). But even in theworld of politics, someone must see and place a value on the environment orspecie in question in order for it to be protected.
The principle of limited liability protects investors fromthe costs of the activities from which they benefit. In the U.S., there havebeen recent suggestions that, while limited liability towards creditors issocially beneficial in facilitating investment, the privilege ought not toextend to liability in tort for environmental disasters or personal injury. [8][9]In fact, most free-market environmentalists oppose limited liability in tortsas a form of corporate welfare and a limitation of full property rights.
Countering the tragedy of the commons claim, Elinor Ostromhas studied a large number of empirical cases where common property resourceshave been managed successfully. Her work emphasizes neither privateproperty/market arrangements nor government regulation but the successes ofcommunities consciously designing institutional arrangements in response to particularcommon property dilemmas. The stress is on democratic institutions that allowthe users of the common to govern the commons.[10]
Modern environmentalism
Today, the sciences of ecology and environmental science,rather than any aesthetic goals, provide the basis of unity to most seriousenvironmentalists. As more information is gathered in scientific fields, morescientific issues like biodiversity, as opposed to mere aesthetics, are aconcern. Conservation biology is a rapidly developing field. Environmentalismnow has proponents in business: new ventures such as those to reuse and recycleconsumer electronics and other technical equipment are gaining popularity.Computer liquidators are just one example.
In recent years, the environmental movement hasincreasingly focused on global warming as a top issue. As concerns aboutclimate change moved more into the mainstream, from the connections drawnbetween global warming and Hurricane Katrina to Al Gore's film An InconvenientTruth, many environmental groups refocused their efforts. In the United States,2007 witnessed the largest grassroots environmental demonstration in years,Step It Up 2007, with rallies in over 1,400 communities and all 50 states forreal global warming solutions.
Many religious organizations and individual churches nowhave programs and activities dedicated to environmental issues. [11] Thereligious movement is often supported by interpretation of scriptures. [12]Most major religious groups are represented including Jewish, Islamic,Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, Christian and Catholic.
Radical environmentalism
Radical environmentalism is a grassroots branch of thelarger environmental movement that emerged out of an ecocentrism-basedfrustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism. It is theideology behind the radical environmental movement.
The radical environmental movement aspires to what scholarChristopher Manes calls «a new kind of environmental activism:iconoclastic, uncompromising, discontented with traditional conservationpolicy, at time illegal ...» Radical environmentalism presupposes a needto reconsider Western ideas of religion and philosophy (including capitalism,patriarchy[1] and globalization)[2] sometimes through «resacralising»and reconnecting with nature.[1]
The movement is typified by leaderless resistanceorganizations such as Earth First!, which subscribe to the idea of takingdirect action in defense of «Mother Earth» including civildisobedience, ecotage and monkeywrenching.[1] Movements such as the EarthLiberation Front (ELF) and Earth Liberation Army (ELA) also take this form ofaction, although focus on economic sabotage, rather than civil disobedience.[3]Radical environmentalists include earth liberationists as well as anarcho-primitivists,animal liberationists, bioregionalists, green anarchists, deep ecologists,ecopsychologists, ecofeminists, neo-Pagans, Wiccans, Third Positionists, anti-globalizationand anti-capitalist protesters.[1]
Whilst many people believe that the first significantradical environmentalist group was Greenpeace, which made use of direct actionbeginning in the 1970s to confront whaling ships and nuclear weaponstesters,[4] others within the movement, argues as Earth Liberation Front (ELF)prisoner Jeff «Free» Luers, suggests that the movement wasestablished centuries ago. He often writes that the concept of«eco-defence» was born shortly after the existence of the human race,claiming it is only recently that within the modern development of human society,and individuals losing touch with the earth and its wild roots, that moreradical tactics and political theories have emerged.[2][5]
The alternative tactic of using explosive and incendiarydevices was then established in 1976, by John Hanna and others as theEnvironmental Life Force (ELF), also now known as the original ELF. The groupconducted a campaign of armed actions in northern California and Oregon, laterdisbanding in 1978 following Hanna's arrest for placing incendiary devices onseven crop-dusters at the Salinas, California airport on May Day, 1977.[6] Itwasn't until over a decade and a half later that this form of guerrilla warfareresurfaced as the Earth Liberation Front [7] using the same ELF acronym.
In 1980 Earth First! was founded by Dave Foreman andothers to confront environmental destruction, primarily of the American West.Inspired by the Edward Abbey novel «The Monkey Wrench Gang», EarthFirst! made use of such techniques as treesitting[8] and treespiking[9] to stoplogging companies, as well as other activities targeted towards mining, roadconstruction,[10] suburban development and energy companies.
The organization were committed to nonviolent ecotagetechniques from the group's inception, with those that split from the movementin the 1990s including the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) in 1992, namingthemselves after the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) who formed in the 1970s.[12]Three years later in Canada, inspired by the ELF in Europe the first EarthLiberation direct action occurred, but this time as the Earth Liberation Army(ELA), a similar movement who use ecotage and monkeywrenching as a tool,although no guidelines had been published.
The ELF gained national attention for a series of actionswhich earned them the label of eco-terrorists,[13][14] including the burning ofa ski resort in Vail, Colorado in 1998, and the burning of an SUV dealership inOregon in 1999. In the same year the ELA had made headlines by setting fire tothe Vail Resorts in Washington, D.C., causing $12 million in damages.[15] Thedefendants in the case were later charged in the FBI's «OperationBackfire», along with other arsons and cases, which were later named byenvironmentalists as the Green Scare; alluding to the Red Scare, periods offear over communist infiltration of U.S.[16][17] Following the September 11,2001 attacks several laws were passed increasing the penalty for ecoterrorism,and hearings were held in Congress discussing the activity of groups such asthe ELF. To date no one has been killed as a result of an ELF or ALF actionsince both groups forbid harming human or non-human life.[18] It was thenannounced in 2003 that «eco-terrorist» attacks, known as«ecotage», had increased from the ELF, ELA and the «EnvironmentalRangers», another name used be activists when engaging in similaractivity.[19]
In 2005 the FBI announced that the ELF, is America'sgreatest domestic terrorist threat, responsible for over 1,200 «criminalincidents» amounting to tens of millions of dollars in damage to property,[20] with the United States Department of Homeland Security confirming thisregarding the ALF and ELF. [21]
Plane Stupid then was launched in 2005, in an attempt to combat the growing airport expansions in the UK using direct action with ayear later the first Camp for Climate Action being held with 600 peopleattending a protest called Reclaim Power converging on Drax Power Station inNorth Yorkshire and attempted to shut it down. There were thirty-eight arrests,with four breaching the fence and the railway line being blocked. [22][23]
Radical environmentalism has been called a new religiousmovement by Bron Taylor (1998). Taylor contends that «Radicalenvironmentalism is best understood as a new religious movement that viewsenvironmental degradation as an assault on a sacred, naturalworld.»[18][24]
Several philosophies have arisen from ideas in radicalenvironmentalism that includes Deep Ecology, Ecofeminism, Social Ecology, andBioregionalism.
Deep Ecology is attributed to Arne Naess and is defined as“a normative, ecophilosophical movement that is inspired and fortified in partby our experience as humans in nature and in part by ecological knowledge”.[25]
Ecofeminism originated in the 1970s and draws a parallelbetween the oppression of women in patriarchal societies and the oppression ofthe environment.[26]
Social Ecology is an idea attributed to Murray Bookchin,who argued that in order to save the environment, human society needed to copythe structure of nature and decentralize both socially and economically. [26]
Bioregionalism is a philosophy that focuses on thepractical application of Social Ecology, and theorizes on “building and livingin human social communities that are compatible with ecological systems”. [26]