On the event of Earth Day I spent some time
thinking about the state of the environmental movement in Canada. As my regular
readers know, I have written a lot of posts about the environmental movement including
observations from a position on the sidelines of the Clayoquot battle (Modern Environmentalism: Trying to replicate the Clayoquot)
through the years when I still believed that deep green and moderates could
work hand-in-hand (Environmentalism and Pragmatism, the two aren't mutually
exclusive - A blast from my past) to a recognition that under the
current political climate, pragmatists will never be accepted as equals by the
deep greens (So Whatever Happened to the Environmental Moderates and
Pragmatists?). I have also written about a reality that many of the
deep greens simply do not understand: that their greenest desires are
incompatible with a healthy ecosphere (Modern Environmental Fairy Tales: "Moving Back to the
Land" and the 100 Mile Diet). That last post, while written
well before its release, could basically be a chapter from An Ecomodernist Manifesto. As I discuss, we have to build a
world where humans give nature an opportunity to thrive by densifying rather
than the deep green’s preferred fairy-tale world where everyone goes back to
living off the land. Having written on all these topics I want to address an
issue that I think will decide the direction of the environmental movement for
the foreseeable future. Everyone knows the Winston Churchill quotation: “those
who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Well I fear that the
modern environmental movement, in a massive case of hubris, is in the process
of repeating their greatest failure of the past: the mistaken belief that the
environmental movement fits in the traditional left-right rubric of modern
politics.
Ask any pollster and you will hear the same thing:
in the public sphere, interest in the environment (as exemplified by climate
change) peaked in the late oughts and has been diminishing ever since (ref). I detail my own crisis of faith in my post
(On Appeals to Authority, “Climategate” and the Wizard of Oz:
a Personal Journey from "Trust Me" to "Show Me")
and as indicated in the earlier referenced article, I am not alone. Now a
simple affair like “Climategate” should not be enough to drive the public away
from supporting action on such an important topic as climate change but the
problem is that the environmental movement is repeating their errors of the
1980s and by the looks at the trends, they are about to suffer another decade in
the desert like the cold years of the late 1990s early 2000’s. The young’uns
amongst my readership will have forgotten that in the 1980s “Environment” was
king. As I have discussed previously, I was a university student in the 1980’s
and a student activist. In those days the environmental movement saw some of
its biggest successes. The Montreal Protocol (1987) and the Acid Rain Treaty
(initiated in 1988 and signed in 1991) were two big Canadian successes feeding
into the high point for the Canadian green movement of the era: the rolling out
of “The Green Plan” (ref). For my non-Canadian readers, the Green Plan
was a plan by the government of the era to work forward on eight keys areas of
environmental interest ranging from “clean air, water and land” to “sustaining
our renewable resources”. The plan involved spending $3 billion over five years
and allowed for the collection of baseline data on all sorts of environmental
and ecological indicators. The understanding being that until you had baseline
data on the environment you had no way of understanding your performance. The
Green Plan helped fund my first job in the environmental industry and did so
for any number of my friends. It was a high point for funding of the
environment in Canadian political history. The funny thing about all those
major events, including the Green Plan? They happened during Conservative
governments. You see the environment is not a strictly left-right issue.
Regardless of what you may have been led to believe, the environmental movement has
many friends on the right side of the political spectrum. Heck, some of the
most ardent conservationists out there are strict religionists who take pride
in protecting and nurturing god’s creation.
So if "the environment" is not about
left-right then what is it about? Well as I described in my previous post it is
important to remember that in our history every surge in environmental
awareness has occurred during times of strong economic performance. Look at the
historical record and check out how environmental issues fall off the table
during economic downturns. Look at how fast and how far the environment fell
off the table following the crash of 1998. The lesson of history is that if you
want to improve our environmental awareness and environmental performance you
need a thriving economy. The current aim of the environmental movement, to
stagnate our economy in the name of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, is
thus guaranteed to backfire. In good times governments have the money to invest in research and
the environment, in bad times those priorities can become sidelined. So if the environmental movement
wants to help us work our way out of this dilemma, it needs to ensure that the
average voter is not worrying about his/her next paycheck. In a global sense
the environmental movement has to understand that hungry families care more
about feeding their children than protecting the environment.
So let’s go back to the whole idea of the
left-right thing. There is an old saw (proverb) that says: “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend”. This proverb is categorically wrong. While the enemy of
your enemy may be your friend, he/she may also be an enemy to you and your
cause. As a modern example consider the opposition to Assad in Syria. At the
start of the rebellion the moderate enemies of Assad followed the old proverb
and what happened? Well the moderates turned their backs on their newfound
“friends” (ISIL) only to get ambushed and murdered for their efforts. In the
environmental world, environmentalists, as they gain political power, have
historically aligned themselves with progressive and left-wing groups. The
progressive groups make them feel welcome and often support their rallies and
causes. The problem is that the progressives have their own agendas. They will
support you if you help them advance their socio-political goals but get in
their way and you are just spare baggage to be ejected as flotsam come the
first sign of bad weather. Many young British Columbian environmentalists
wrongly think of the New Democratic Party (the NDP, our left wing major
political party) as an ally. In doing so, they forget the lessons of our shared
history. Clayoquot Sound happened under
the Mike Harcourt (NDP) government. The Harcourt government, which was elected
with the help of the environmental movement of the day, treated
environmentalists more harshly than did the Social Credit before them or the
Liberals after. The NDP government authorized the logging (to give union
loggers work) that resulted in the protests to begin with; they then
ordered the mass arrests in the Clayoquot and an NDP attorney general ensured
that the arrestees were all brought to trial (in mass trials of all things) and
were punished to the fullest extent of the law. It was under an NDP government
that environmentalists were thrown in jail for protesting! Consider that as you
get released on your own recognisance after a pipeline protest. Glen
Clark’s (Glen Clark was another NDP Premiere) tenure saw the growth of the
Green Party because under the Clark government, every time a progressive policy
came in conflict with an environmental one, the progressive side won. Ujjal
Dosanjh’s (the last NDP Premiere of BC) attempted rapprochement with the Greens
came at the very end of his tenure, when it was clear he had no chance of
winning another election. Only when he needed their help to try to get
re-elected did he re-discover his green roots.
In a national sense the biggest advances for the
environmental movement came not from Liberal governments (since the NDP never
gets elected federally) but during the Conservative ones. The greenest Prime
Minister in our history, ironically enough, was Brian Mulroney.
Internationally, the Montreal Protocol would never have been passed without the
strong support of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Heck Margaret Thatcher
was the first major politician to develop policies to address climate change.
Put simply, the way the modern environmental movement has aligned itself with
progressives and anarchists has done nothing to build popular support for the
movement. The government of the day is not going to make major changes unless
at least a plurality of the voters are onside. When the average voter sees
anarchists blocking roads and delaying their commutes, they don’t think, “I
want to elect that guy to run my government”. So every pointless protest only
builds momentum for people on the other side. As for getting the government’s
ear, why would a Harper government do anything to help a movement that has
declared its main goal as being to replace the Harper government? Realistically
if the environmental movement can move away from its fascination with
left-right politics then it can recognize that it has allies on the right side
of the spectrum and enemies on the left. By stepping away from the partisan
politics it can hoe its own row and drive its own agendas. By doing so it may
discover that the currently impossible suddenly might become possible. Take a
read at the following story to see where this train of thought goes.
The corollary to this is: that if you go about making enemies of half the
electorate then don’t expect their help once the election is over.
In
the next 12 months there will federal elections in the UK, Canada and the US.
In each case the environmental movement is betting its future on only one side
in each election. This is the very same thing that the greens did in Australia
several months ago and look how that turned out. As a betting man, I prefer to
hedge my bets and so should the environmental movement; since history has shown
that even when your preferred parties win, you cannot guarantee that the
environment will be their deciding issue. Remember the lessons learned from the
school of hard knocks: the environment is not a left-right issue and to treat
it as such only guarantees its marginalization. If you alienate half the
electorate you lose them as allies and as a corollary if you guarantee someone
your support you guarantee that they can take you for granted.
typo: Mike Harcourt
ReplyDeleteegg on face, was thinking about the Socreds while writing....thanks
DeleteVenezuela is a good example of "progressive" lack of environmental manners:
ReplyDeleteThe oil spill in the Jusepin River.
http://www.el-nacional.com/investigacion/guarapiche/Jusepin-Guarapiche-Monagas-Martinez-Nacional_NACIMA20130418_0055_6.jpg
The New Zealand Green Party have a similar issue. Because they essentially will not work with the (centre-right) National Party, they are seen are merely an extension of the (centre-left) Labour Party. Thus they get to 10% of the vote and then are stuck. Any more votes they win come from the overall Left anyway. So they never actually hold the balance of power, because the Labour Party knows in any crunch they will support them A previous government under Helen Clark didn't even form a coalition with them, despite being a minority government, because of that.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Labour Party isn't even particularly environmentally friendly -- although they tend to talk up a storm about it, they don't do that much.
People have been pointing out recently that losing their attachment to the Left would give the Greens more power. Their leaders aren't stupid and know that. But their emotional attachment is so strong that they can't make the move. They don't realise that losing votes, but moving away from being strongly left would actually make them more power.
A real issue I suspect is that most of their supporters are left first, enviroment second. Even in a party supposedly devoted to the environment the social and economic issues actually come first. "The Environment" is a stick with which to beat the economically dry, not a real concern at all.
Mark, my environmentalist friends are mostly left to far left leaning. They get mad at me when I jokingly call them watermelons, but there's no way to get around it.
DeleteThe right seems to have a similar problem, I jokingly call them "The Party of Dirt".
May I simply just say what a relief to discover someone that actually knows what they are talking about online. You actually know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. 경마
ReplyDeleteFinally a simple to understand information, appreciated!
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