Environmentalism & Green Politics

Overview

• Ecology: The Scope of the Crisis

• The Greening of Politics– “Liberal” Environmentalism– “Conservative” Environmentalism– “Deep Ecology”: Earth First!

Background

• In western thought, attitudes towards nature were closely connected to religion until the 19th century

• By the start of the industrial revolution, the idea that God gave nature to human beings to use for the betterment of human beings began to take hold

The Crisis

In the evolutionaryscope of things, humanbeings are relative late comers to the scene

The Crisis

Yet within the past century, a blink of the eye, we’vecome to dominate the ecosphere

The Crisis

The Crisis

Global population density

The Crisis

The Crisis

More data on Global Inequality from CIA World Factbook

The Crisis

• Consequences of rapid human population growth– Energy demands– Food production

demands– Employment– Education– Environmental Stress

The Crisis

The Crisis

The Environmental Movement

• On 22 June 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland

• Fire lasted 30 minutes

The Environmental Movement

“Some River! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows. ‘Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown,’ Cleveland's citizens joke grimly. ‘He decays’. . . The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration dryly notes: ‘The lower Cuyahoga has no visible signs of life, not even low forms such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." It is also -- literally -- a fire hazard.’”

-- Time magazine, 1 August 1969

Signs along the River

The Environmental Movement

• In the late 1960s, Lake Erie, was on the way to becoming a “dead” lake

• Too many chemicals, particularly nitrates from fertilizer and phosphates from soap and cleansers, led to huge algae blooms that killed off the fish and other plant species (video here)

Water Pollution

• On 2/25/76 New York DEC made it illegal to fish in the upper Hudson from the Ft. Edward Dam to the federal dam at Albany

• Closed Hudson River commercial fisheries, and warned people about dangers of eating Hudson River fish.

General Electric dumped Between 209,000 and 1.3 million pounds of PCBsdirectly into Hudson

Water Pollution

• Since that time, the spread of PCBs throughout the river and its food chain has created an extensive toxic waste problem.

• About 200 miles of the river is designated as a Superfund site.

The Environmental Movement

• Building on public discontent with status quo policies on race, sex, the Vietnam War, activists (both inside and outside government) begin widespread efforts to raise awareness of environmental issues

• First Earth Day calls come from Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to create a national teach in on the enviroment

The Environmental Movement

• In July 1970, Congress creates the Environmental Protection Agency, a federal agency charged with monitoring compliance with federal enviromental laws, creating/shaping federal policy on the enviroment

Water Pollution

• Congress passes:– Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1972)– Clean Water Act (1977)– Water Quality Act (1987)

mandating that waters be safe for human sports and recreation by 1983

Water Pollution

• In August 1995, the Upper Hudson was re-opened to fishing, but only on a catch and release basis.

• NY and NJ agencies recommend that people eat no striped bass or blue crabs from the Newark Bay area, and no more than one meal a week from other areas in the New York Harbor estuary.

• EPA guidelines recommend no consumption.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

New York City

1963 smog

2005 smog

Air Quality

• Congress enacts a series of Clean Air Act (1970), amended in 1977 and 1990 to add new targets to reduce and new levels for toxins permissible for release in the air

Land Use

Land Use

“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land”

-- Aldo Leopold

Land Use

• Conservation entails recognizing that human beings do not have sufficient understanding of the complexities of nature to “govern” or “conquer” nature

• Rather, we need to work with nature

Land Use

“Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy upward; death and decay return it to the soil.”

Soil

Plants

Insects

Birds and Reptiles

Rodents and small mammals

Large mammalian carnivores

Human beings

Land Use

“This interdependence between the complex structure of the land and its smooth functioning as an energy unit is one of its basic attributes…When a change occurs in one part of the circuit, many other parts must adjust themselves to it.”

Land Use

“Change does not necessarily obstruct or divert the flow of energy; evolution is a long series of self-induced changes, the net result of which has been to elaborate the flow mechanism and to lengthen the circuit.”

Soil

Plants

Insects

Birds and Reptiles

Rodents and small mammals

Large mammalian carnivores

Human beings

Evolution providesa mechanism by which new life formsemerge and adaptto environmental conditions which

in turn shape and change the environmental conditions

Land Use

However, human activities have greatly altered the pace by which environments change and thereby have impacted species beyond anything found in nonhuman natural conditions, with the possible exception of catastrophic events (meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, etc.)

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Wildlife Protection

• Congress enacts the Endangered Species Act (1973) an act protecting species deemed on the edge of extinction

• Currently some 1300 plant and animal species listed as endangered or threatened in the US

Deep Ecology

Deep Ecology, a term coinedby Arne Naess (1910- ) to describe a view of human relationships with nature that emphasizes a complete equality between human and nonhuman species.

Deep Ecology

• Dave Foreman (1946 - )

Co-founder, in 1976, of Earth First! a radical environmental group

Deep Ecology

• Earth Liberation Front (ELF)

• Animal Liberation Front (ALF)

Deep Ecology

The roots of both EarthFirst! and the ELF are in Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) a novel describing a group of environmentalist activists who sabotage and destroy various machines that they believe are enabling the destruction of the American southwest

Deep Ecology

Foreman and friends realized that “mainstream” environmental groups (e.g., Sierra Club) were unlikely to succeed and prevent environmental degradation in time to save endangered plants, animals, and landscapes.

Deep Ecology: Basic Tenets

1. Human beings are not and should not be the measure of all things

• Human beings are no more nor less than another animal species.

2. All living creatures and communities have value intrinsic to their own being, not based on contributions or liabilities to human beings

Deep Ecology: Basic Tenets

3. Wilderness preservation is essential

4. Human populations are too large and thereby threaten the existence of other species

5. Questions about our understanding and definition of “Progress” and “Technology”

Deep Ecology: Basic Tenets

6. Expand beyond traditional ideological constraints and defend the earth as a whole

7. Actions are more importantthan philosophy

• Monkey-wrenching is legitimate political activity

8. Begin with changes inpersonal lifestyle choices

Conclusion

• Extensive effort to reshape public attitudes towards the environment -- both from within the government and from outside groups -- are underway

• Art and artists have played and can continue to play an important role in that transformation