Carlos Rymer Towards A New Dialogue About The MovementMay, 2007
Responding to the “Politics of Unsustainability”: An Agenda For The GlobalEnvironmental Movement
Recently, Bluhdorn and Welsh of the United Kingdom published a comprehensiveoverview of the state of environmental politics in the Journal of Environmental Politics (April,2007). Titled
Eco-politics beyond the Paradigm of Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda
, the journal article concludes that the perceived progress in environmental policies and discussions (including the recent upsurge in media coverage about global warming)is in fact merely a discussion of managing our seeming
inability
to be sustainable and framingfundamental, “radical” changes in institutional action to influence markets in terms that sustain a
politics of unsustainability
(such as ecological modernization, sustainable development,alternative technologies, etc.). I do not intend to discuss their main arguments, but I want tosummarize them here:
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The environmental crisis is worsening globally, and we are becoming attuned to solvingone problem at a time through problem-specific fixes rather than society-specific fixes.
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The environmental movement has been almost fully integrated into governmental processes and discussions, which has tamed demands for scientifically justified,fundamental changes in human behaviors and institutional actions. Demands for science- backed changes have been neutralized and reframed as ideas that are now mainstream.
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We have been discussing how to achieve sustainability for a very long time, have createdconcepts that convey progress and satisfy people and the broader movement, and haveestablished bureaucratic processes to “talk” about different issues, but have not addressedthe fundamental problem of unimpeded, unnecessary consumption where it is very high.
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We have assumed that we can solve environmental problems through technological fixes,and continue to hold the assumption that the current democratic form of capitalism that promotes consumption cannot be modified.
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We have completely delved into discussions without setting concrete actions that affectsociety at all levels, and that in turn has put us far behind scientific measurements thatindicate that planetary conditions are worsening.
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The author, Carlos Rymer, is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York studying sustainabledevelopment. He is a campus climate challenge leader, state organizer in New Jersey, and leader of other efforts toreduce global warming pollution and fully place sustainability goals into society’s improvement. He may becontacted at cmr55@cornell.eduor 551-556-0189.
Carlos Rymer Towards A New Dialogue About The MovementMay, 2007
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We have accepted a system where politicians act to do what consumers prefer (greater material consumption) and where consumers distrust political actions, thus preventingrealistic dialogue.
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We have created a political-discussion system that has instead worsened our ability toaddress the environmental crisis through concrete actions that will ultimately nullify our negative environmental impact and allow us to make positive environmental impacts.These arguments are summarized from an academic point of view, and are more fullyexplained in the authors’ article. Yet I am an activist, and I want to discuss this in terms of whatthis means to the environmental movement, and in particular to the climate movement, so Istrongly suggest attributing any criticism to the section below, and not to what I’ve summarizedabove.As an activist who’s up-to-date with the progress of the climate movement, I am proud toconclude that we have made great strides towards getting the message out about the state of our climate, the actions that we need to take immediately, and the need to grow the movementfurther. With the recent national day of action in the United States, Step It Up, I believe we haveenough momentum to enlist U.S. legislators to an agenda of reducing global warming pollutionsubstantially. However, now that we have this momentum, we need to fully use it not just toensure that we ensure a safe climate, but so that we enter a real sustainability revolution that willfundamentally change markets, consumer culture, and the process of politics to achieve thefollowing goals (8-Point Plan):
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Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world 90% below 1990 levels by theyear 2030. This goal has been justified by the most current science, and it is one we in theclimate movement must begin to embrace before we lock ourselves into a system thatwas designed to reduce emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, is not flexible, anddoes not address the necessary institutional changes to value natural and human capital(i.e. price ecosystem services and human depreciation so that our consumer culture isfundamentally placed within the framework of science-backed sustainability).
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Reduce the global ecological footprint to that which the Earth can sustain.
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Engage the developed world with the developing world in changing the current economicindicator, GDP, into a new, agreed-upon indicator that equally treats economic,
Carlos Rymer Towards A New Dialogue About The MovementMay, 2007environmental, and social aspects as part of the human economy (this will involvesubstantial discussion about what should go into the indicator and how developingcountries will measure them, and so will require large institutional changes and financialsupport).
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Engage the United States with the rest of the world in a discussion on how to fully pricenatural and human capital as part of markets, so as to change consumer culture.
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Engage in a discussion about necessary changes to the current political system so thatconsumers and politicians are better aligned with real necessary actions, whether theyconstrain or provide incentives (i.e. we need to make sure agendas are created based onreal environmental and social needs, and not on special-interest desires).
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Establish a global agreement to protect environmentally and socially degrading businesses from losing market share (i.e. subsidizing them to change in order to do whatis environmentally and socially required while maintaining a fairly competitive market)so they can profit from doing environmental and social good (and so that we tame theopposition rather than having them taming us).
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Fully fund the most innovative ideas and developments about how to progress towards asustainable society that improves rather than grow.
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Rethink governments so as to ensure that different communities within a nation have political representatives (i.e. provide anthropologists, businesspeople, economists,engineers, environmentalists, scientists, sociologists, etc. with the right to have an equalvote in governmental decision-making).We cannot focus on one issue without addressing the broader crisis; doing so may get us past one problem, but it will ultimately tame us after victory, leaving the rest of the crisis in aworsening trend. As a climate activist, I have been mainly promoting action to fight globalwarming, yet I believe that we have the capacity to
avert
the environmental crisis altogether.Therefore, I propose to the climate movement and the broader environmental movement toachieve the proposed agenda:
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Use the current momentum in the movement to reframe our demands in terms of solutions to the environmental crisis, not just global warming.
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Responding to the Politics of Unsustainability
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