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The other environmental extremists
Dec. 16th, 2008 09:52 pm"We know now what we could never have known before--that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
With this quote, and his book also titled Utopia or Oblivion, Mr. Fuller may have marked himself as an early proponent of what I've decided to call abusive environmentalism. Its chief characteristic is the belief that we're all doomed unless the world stops being stupid and rushes to get behind some specific plan that, when brought to scale, will somehow lead to a wonderfully harmonious new society. Now, Bucky was widely acknowledged to be something of a genius, so he perhaps had more of a right to this kind of thinking than most. I don't think I can say the same for two modern abusive environmentalists, Glen Barry of Ecological Internet and Michael Braungart, co-author of Cradle to Cradle.
Barry and Braungart both have a tendency to attack other environmentalists as well as the usual suspects (polluting industries, corrupt governments, etc). Both of them have something against Al Gore--Dr. Barry lumps him in with other celebrity environmentalists who refuse to limit their own lifestyles, while Dr. Braungart just doesn't like the way he frames environmental problems. This is odd, because Gore's current big initiative, Repower America, is almost abusive in its demand for a ten-year timeline for replacement of all fossil-fuel-based power generation, including over 100 gigawatts from massive solar-thermal arrays out in the desert somewhere.* I'm only exempting it from this category on the grounds that it assumes we're on the right track, rather than telling us that even our current best efforts to build a sustainable civilization are horribly misguided.
I'm not going to go in depth about Glen Barry's call for "sufficient measures" to prevent climate catastrophe, though I will note that one of his favorite targets is the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies supposedly sustainable sources of wood. In a recent blog post, he gives a backhanded compliment to Oregon, the environmentally hyper-aware state where I grew up, saying that it finally got something right after "a long history of forest patronage and destroying terrestrial ecosystems for short term economic gain." You can get an idea for his level of extremism by reading pretty much anything he's written.
As for Dr. Braungart, I find myself more compelled to try to get past his tendency to call everyone stupid, because his vision of a future where humans have "positive ecological footprints" is quite compelling. But if he hopes to make any headway with his ideas, I think he needs to stop focusing so much attention on what his competitors in the field of ecological design are doing wrong. Describing in a recent interview how recycled paper and soy-based ink are actually doing more harm than good, Braungart goes so far as to say that "sustainability [in general] will only slow down the collapse of the planet." I mean, that doesn't make any sense--maybe we're doing it wrong now, but if we can achieve sustainability, then by definition we will have a civilization that is no longer destroying the basis of its own existence!
Braungart claims that incrementalism is impossible. "When people now try to be a little less bad, they make it even worse, because they basically stabilize the wrong systems and make them perfectly wrong." But the way I see it, the problems with supposed fixes to environmental problems are usually the result of moving too fast, not too slow. Soy-based inks were the solution that could be brought to scale most quickly, while wiser choices will take longer to develop and bring to market. In general, rushing to sign onto any major new project, even (or especially) one that purports to be "100% good" for people and the planet, will almost always result in failing to recognize major downsides until it's too late. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that when it comes to tackling global crises, we can't afford to panic.
* To be fair, though, the biggest single chunk of the Repower America plan is a reduction of total national energy use by 28% below the DOE's projection for 2020. Take that, Sharon Astyk!
- R. Buckminster Fuller
With this quote, and his book also titled Utopia or Oblivion, Mr. Fuller may have marked himself as an early proponent of what I've decided to call abusive environmentalism. Its chief characteristic is the belief that we're all doomed unless the world stops being stupid and rushes to get behind some specific plan that, when brought to scale, will somehow lead to a wonderfully harmonious new society. Now, Bucky was widely acknowledged to be something of a genius, so he perhaps had more of a right to this kind of thinking than most. I don't think I can say the same for two modern abusive environmentalists, Glen Barry of Ecological Internet and Michael Braungart, co-author of Cradle to Cradle.
Barry and Braungart both have a tendency to attack other environmentalists as well as the usual suspects (polluting industries, corrupt governments, etc). Both of them have something against Al Gore--Dr. Barry lumps him in with other celebrity environmentalists who refuse to limit their own lifestyles, while Dr. Braungart just doesn't like the way he frames environmental problems. This is odd, because Gore's current big initiative, Repower America, is almost abusive in its demand for a ten-year timeline for replacement of all fossil-fuel-based power generation, including over 100 gigawatts from massive solar-thermal arrays out in the desert somewhere.* I'm only exempting it from this category on the grounds that it assumes we're on the right track, rather than telling us that even our current best efforts to build a sustainable civilization are horribly misguided.
I'm not going to go in depth about Glen Barry's call for "sufficient measures" to prevent climate catastrophe, though I will note that one of his favorite targets is the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies supposedly sustainable sources of wood. In a recent blog post, he gives a backhanded compliment to Oregon, the environmentally hyper-aware state where I grew up, saying that it finally got something right after "a long history of forest patronage and destroying terrestrial ecosystems for short term economic gain." You can get an idea for his level of extremism by reading pretty much anything he's written.
As for Dr. Braungart, I find myself more compelled to try to get past his tendency to call everyone stupid, because his vision of a future where humans have "positive ecological footprints" is quite compelling. But if he hopes to make any headway with his ideas, I think he needs to stop focusing so much attention on what his competitors in the field of ecological design are doing wrong. Describing in a recent interview how recycled paper and soy-based ink are actually doing more harm than good, Braungart goes so far as to say that "sustainability [in general] will only slow down the collapse of the planet." I mean, that doesn't make any sense--maybe we're doing it wrong now, but if we can achieve sustainability, then by definition we will have a civilization that is no longer destroying the basis of its own existence!
Braungart claims that incrementalism is impossible. "When people now try to be a little less bad, they make it even worse, because they basically stabilize the wrong systems and make them perfectly wrong." But the way I see it, the problems with supposed fixes to environmental problems are usually the result of moving too fast, not too slow. Soy-based inks were the solution that could be brought to scale most quickly, while wiser choices will take longer to develop and bring to market. In general, rushing to sign onto any major new project, even (or especially) one that purports to be "100% good" for people and the planet, will almost always result in failing to recognize major downsides until it's too late. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that when it comes to tackling global crises, we can't afford to panic.
* To be fair, though, the biggest single chunk of the Repower America plan is a reduction of total national energy use by 28% below the DOE's projection for 2020. Take that, Sharon Astyk!
