Breakthrough: The Ethical Environmentalist

Steven Pinker's piece in last Sunday's New York Times magazine has some powerful lessons for environmentalists. Pinker paints a picture of human morality as a sense not much different from our other five senses -- and just as susceptible to illusion. He makes a convincing case against the urge to "go with your gut." He writes,

"Our habit of moralizing problems, merging them with intuitions of purity and contamination, and resting content when we feel the right feelings, can get in the way of doing the right thing."

Bill Chaloupka, professor of Political Science at Colorado State University, brings this message home to environmentalists. An environmentalist himself, Chaloupka understands that the moralizing so endemic to the movement isn't helping anyone:

"While other movements (at least in significant part) were founded on the insistence that institutions grant them respect and an opportunity to participate, greens persisted in issuing grim predictions and insisting that authority be ceded to them, implying not merely that they should have a voice in the conversation, but that the conversation should end, the sooner the better."

This kind of moralizing is particularly hard to see, because it masquerades as simple adherence to self-evident truth. But I see it in the well-meaning efforts of environmentalists everywhere. Take this excerpt from Carl Pope's review of "Break Through," for example:

"To me, environmentalism is an ethic, the blending of scientific insights into a set of values: concern for the future, humility about our place in the complex web of life, and a commitment to look for and try to understand these connections. It's not, as some have argued, science as religion, but a marriage of science and values derived, for the most part, from the world's great religions. It's an ethic that captures an essential truth: there is only one biosphere, only one ozone layer, and shared dedication to protecting these commons -- the great collective inheritance of humanity -- should be everyone's concern."

This is moralizing in action: protecting the environment is the right thing to do, therefore it "should" be everyone's concern. And if it's not, then you've got a problem. This isn't solving anything -- it's defining those who don't share our concern as moral outsiders. This way of thinking is exactly what Michael and Ted argue is so toxic to the environmental movement.

The environmental movement's single-minded emphasis on Kyoto-style emissions reductions is an example of this moralizing. Pinker ends his article with this salient indictment:

"And nowhere is moralization more of a hazard than in our greatest global challenge. The threat of human-induced climate change has become the occasion for a moralistic revival meeting. In many discussions, the cause of climate change is overindulgence (too many S.U.V.'s) and defilement (sullying the atmosphere), and the solution is temperance (conservation) and expiation (buying carbon offset coupons). Yet the experts agree that these numbers don't add up: even if every last American became conscientious about his or her carbon emissions, the effects on climate change would be trifling, if for no other reason than that two billion Indians and Chinese are unlikely to copy our born-again abstemiousness. Though voluntary conservation may be one wedge in an effective carbon-reduction pie, the other wedges will have to be morally boring, like a carbon tax and new energy technologies, or even taboo, like nuclear power and deliberate manipulation of the ocean and atmosphere. Our habit of moralizing problems, merging them with intuitions of purity and contamination, and resting content when we feel the right feelings, can get in the way of doing the right thing."

In an age of overconsumption and overindulgence, emissions reductions carry a certain ascetic appeal for Western environmentalists. But even if we reduce our emissions to zero, no dose of moralizing is going to convince China or India to follow suit. Let's not get so intoxicated with the ecology of the "natural" world that we lose sight of the ecology of the political one, which is just as real as the Redwoods or the Rockies, and just as important to engage with and understand. Any effective plan to deal with climate change will need to drop the moralizing and make an effective appeal to the developing world.

It's funny. 10 years ago no one mentioned global warming, and now it's the only thing the environmental movement really communicates about. In our concern over global climate change let us not forget the dangers of local climate change. Greenhouse gas emission is just one way to alter the climate, and changes in land cover and land use affect both global and local systems. Additionally climate change is not the only issue of concern for environmentalism. We are likely within the sixth mass extinction, and species preservation is of concern for ecosystem stability, and aesthetics. These are often local issues, and as such "Environmental Asceticism in One Country" may be an important aspect of climate change mitigation regardless of the success of efforts to include China and India in a progressive development strategy. We must embrace many strategies, on many scales. While turning environmental problems into moral ones is not a panacea, In some communities moralizing may be effective. In others different strategies must be invoked. Posted by: Usoak at January 20, 2008 7:52 PM

Lindsay, I agree in general, however I want to focus on one point that I think is frighteningly misunderstood in the United States. China and India do not have the same development path, are not going to reduce emissions for ascetic reasons - but for other deep and compelling political, social, economic, and environmental reasons. This statement, "even if every last American became conscientious about his or her carbon emissions, the effects on climate change would be trifling, if for no other reason than that two billion Indians and Chinese are unlikely to copy our born-again abstemiousness." is almost fantastically off-base. Emissions reductions by the United States would have a tremendous impact both in global emissions trajectories and in the development of clean energy and efficiency industries, as well as a tangible demonstration of global leadership. China desperately needs to cut emissions to reduce their fantastic health costs and tolls on the populations that is leading to political uprest. India has a sectoral emissions problem, of a class of people importing western cars, living in palaces, and using private jets and hiding behind the poverty of the population. There are many reasons, why a broad based clean energy economy would shatter the "golden frathouse" that is driving division in that society. The last thing we need is more ignorance about the world propagated as wisdom. Posted by: Richard Graves at January 21, 2008 7:26 AM

With all due respect Richard, what is fantastical is to dismiss the extraordinarily rapid economic development occurring today in China and India as a Western conspiracy involving a few elites; to do so is to ignore the tremendous desire of the vast majorities of the population of both nations, many of whom still live in abject agrarian poverty, to improve their living standards. While it may be convenient for western climate activists to dismiss rising energy use and carbon emissions in the developing world as the result of a few private jet flying, luxury car driving elites, the reality is that the close relationship between rising energy use and rising living standards is well established throughout the world. As Chinese and Indian peasants leave the crushing poverty of their villages for the slightly less crushing poverty of the cities and as city dwellers find the means to better their lives and the economic prospects of their children, their energy use will increase substantially. Multiply that by several billion and global energy use is going to increase exponentially, even before any Indian elite steps on a private jet or purchases a luxury automobile and even after every American has traded in their incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents and their Hummers for Priuses (or Tata Nanos). India and China may take modest steps to improve the energy efficiency of their economies and the air quality in their cities. But those steps will have little impact on the trajectory of energy use and carbon emissions. Neither will moralizing, asceticism, and abstinence on the part of wealthy westerners. The only solution is to develop clean energy alternatives that are as cheap or cheaper than the dirty energy sources that China and India will otherwise use to fuel their development. Rhetoric, policies, and actions that do not serve that imperative may make western environmentalists feel better about themselves and superior to their fellow citizens but do little to actually address the climate crisis. Posted by: Lindsay Meisel at January 23, 2008 12:16 AM

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