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Friday, July 19, 2024

Climate justice

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_justice

Climate justice is an approach to climate action that focuses on the unequal impacts of climate change on marginalized or otherwise vulnerable populations. Climate justice wants to achieve an equitable distribution of both the burdens of climate change and the efforts to mitigate climate change. Climate justice is a type of environmental justice.

Climate justice examines concepts such as equality, human rights, collective rights, and the historical responsibilities for climate change. This is done by relating the causes and effects of climate change to concepts of justice, particularly environmental justice and social justice. Presently and historically, marginalized communities often face the worst consequences of climate change. Depending on the country and context, this may include people with low-incomes, indigenous communities or communities of color. There is a growing consensus that people in regions that are the least responsible for climate change often tend to suffer the greatest consequences. They might also be further disadvantaged by responses to climate change which might exacerbate existing inequalities. This situation is known as the 'triple injustices' of climate change.

Conceptions of climate justice can be grouped along the lines of procedural justice and distributive justice. The former stresses fair, transparent and inclusive decision-making. The latter stresses a fair distribution of the costs and outcomes of climate change (substantive rights). There are at least ten different principles that are helpful to distribute climate costs fairly. Other approaches focus on addressing social implications of climate change mitigation. If these are not addressed properly, this could result in profound economic and social tensions. It could even lead to delays in necessary changes.

Climate justice actions can include the growing global body of climate litigation. In 2017, a report of the United Nations Environment Programme identified 894 ongoing legal actions worldwide.

Definition and objectives

Use and popularity of climate justice language has increased dramatically in recent years, yet climate justice is understood in many ways, and the different meanings are sometimes contested. At its simplest, conceptions of climate justice can be grouped along the following two lines:

procedural justice, which emphasizes fair, transparent and inclusive decision making, and
distributive justice, which places the emphasis on who bears the costs of both climate change and the actions taken to address it.

The objectives of climate justice can be described as: "to encompasses a set of rights and obligations, which corporations, individuals and governments have towards those vulnerable people who will be in a way significantly disproportionately affected by climate change."

Climate justice examines concepts such as equality, human rights, collective rights, and the historical responsibilities for climate change. Climate justice is mainly concerned with the procedural and distributive ethical dimensions of and for climate change mitigation.

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report underlines another principle of climate justice which is the "recognition which entails basic respect and robust engagement with and fair consideration of diverse cultures and perspectives". Alternatively, recognition and respect can be understood as the underlying basis for distributive and procedural justice.

Related fields are environmental justice and social justice.

Causes of injustice

Economic systems

Among major emitters, the U.S. has higher annual per capita emissions than China, which has more total annual emissions.

Cumulatively, U.S. and China emissions have caused the most greenhouse gas-related economic damage.

Whether fundamental differences in economic systems, such as capitalism versus socialism, are the, or a, root cause of climate injustice is a contentious issue. In this context, fundamental disagreements arise between liberal and conservative environmental groups on one side and leftist and radical organizations on the other. While the former often tend to blame the excesses of neoliberalism for climate change and argue in favor of market-based reform within capitalism, the latter view capitalism with its exploitative traits as the underlying central issue. Other possible causal explanations include hierarchies based on the group differences and the nature of the fossil fuel regime itself.

Systemic causes

It has been argued that the unwarranted rate of climate change, along with its inequality of burdens, is a structural injustice. There is political responsibility for the maintenance and support of historically constituted structural processes. This is despite assumed viable potential alternative models based on novel technologies and means. As a criterion for determining responsibility for climate change, individual causal contribution or capacity does not matter as much as responsibility for the perpetuation of carbon-intensive structures, practices, and institutions. These structures constitute the global politico-economic system, rather than enabling structural changes towards a system that does not naturally facilitate unsustainable exploitation of people and nature.

For others, climate justice could be pursued through existing economic frameworks, global organizations and policy mechanisms. Therefore, the root-causes could be found in the causes that so far inhibited global implementation of measures like emissions trading schemes, specifically forms that deliver the assumed mitigation results.

Disproportionality between causality and burden

Emissions of the richest 1% are more than twice that of the poorest 50%. Compliance with the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal would require the richest 1% to reduce emissions by at least 30 times, while per-person emissions of the poorest 50% could approximately triple.

Though total CO₂ emissions (size of pie charts) differ substantially among high-emitting regions, the pattern of higher income classes emitting more than lower income classes is consistent across regions. The world's top 1% of emitters emit over 1000 times more than the bottom 1%.

Richer (developed) countries emit more CO₂ per person than poorer (developing) countries. Emissions are roughly proportional to GDP per person, though the rate of increase diminishes with average GDP/pp of about $10,000.

A country-by-country visualisation of each country's vulnerability to effects of climate change (country size) and greenhouse gas emissions (country colour intensity). High emitting countries are generally not the most vulnerable.

The responsibility for anthropogenic climate change differs substantially among individuals and groups. Many of the people and nations most affected by climate change are among the least responsible for it. The most affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and robust action by them is necessary for prospects of moving towards safer environmental conditions.

According to a 2020 report by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, the richest 1% of the global population have caused twice as much carbon emissions as the poorest 50% over the 25 years from 1990 to 2015. This was, respectively, during that period, 15% of cumulative emissions compared to 7%. A second 2023 report found the richest 1% of humans produce more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, while the top 10% richest people account for more than half of global carbon emissions. half of the population is directly responsible for less than 20% of energy footprints and consume less than the top 5% in terms of trade-corrected energy. High-income individuals usually have higher energy footprints as they disproportionally use their larger financial resources for energy-intensive goods. In particular, the largest disproportionality was identified to be in the domain of transport, where the top 10% consume 56% of vehicle fuel and conduct 70% of vehicle purchases.

A 2023 review article found that if there were a 2^oC temperature rise by 2100, roughly 1 billion primarily poor people would die as a result of primarily wealthy people's greenhouse gas emissions.

Intergenerational equity

The nations and the world population need to make changes, including sacrifices (like uncomfortable lifestyle-changes, alterations to public spending and changes to choice of work), today to enable climate justice for future generations.

Preventable severe effects of climate change are likely to occur during the lifetime of the present adult population. Under current climate policy pledges, children born in 2020 (e.g. "Generation Alpha") will experience over their lifetimes, 2–7 times as many heat waves, as well as more of other extreme weather events compared to people born in 1960. This, along with other projections, raises issues of intergenerational equity as it was these generations (specific groups and individuals and their collective governance and perpetuated economics) who are mainly responsible for the burden of climate change.

This illustrates that emissions produced by any given generation can lock-in damage for one or more future generations, making climate change progressively more threatening for the generations affected than for the generation responsible for the threats. The climate system contains tipping points, such as the amount of deforestation of the Amazon that will launch the forest's irreversible decline. A generation whose continued emissions drive the climate system past such significant tipping points inflicts severe injustice on multiple future generations.

Disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged groups

Disadvantaged groups will continue to be disproportionately impacted as climate change persists. These groups will be affected due to inequalities based on demographic characteristics such as differences in gender, race, ethnicity, age, and income. Inequality increases the exposure of disadvantaged groups to harmful effects of climate change while also increasing their susceptibility to destruction caused by climate change. The damage is worsened because disadvantaged groups are last to receive emergency relief and are rarely included in the planning process at local, national and international levels for coping with the impacts of climate change.

Communities of color, women, indigenous groups, and people of low-income all face higher vulnerability to climate change. These groups will be disproportionately impacted by heat waves, air quality, and extreme weather events. Women are also disadvantaged and will be affected by climate change differently than men. This may impact the ability of minority groups to adapt, unless steps are taken to provide these groups with more access to universal resources. Indigenous groups are affected by the consequences of climate change even though they historically have contributed the least to causing it. Indigenous peoples are unjustifiably impacted due to their low income, and continue to have fewer resources to cope with climate change.

Responses to improve climate justice

Burden on future generations

One generation must not be allowed to consume large portions of the CO₂ budget while bearing a relatively minor share of the reduction effort if this would involve leaving subsequent generations with a drastic reduction burden and expose their lives to comprehensive losses of freedom.

— German Federal Constitutional Court
April 2021

Conclusion on the Rights of Nature

The rights of nature protect ecosystems and natural processes for their intrinsic value, thus complementing them with the human right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. The rights of nature, like all constitutional rights, are justiciable and, consequently, judges are obliged to guarantee them.

— Constitutional Court of Ecuador
10 November 2021

There are three common principles of justice in burden-sharing that can be used in making decisions on who bears the larger burdens of climate change globally and domestically: a) those who most caused the problem, b) those who have the most burden-carrying ability and c) those who have benefited most from the activities that cause climate change. Observing calls for climate reparations in scientific literature, among climate movements and in policy debates, a 2023 study estimated that the top 21 fossil fuel companies would owe cumulative climate reparations of $5.4 trillion over the period 2025–2050.

Another method of deciding-making starts from the objective of preventing climate change e.g. beyond 1.5 °C, and from there reasons backwards to who should do what. This makes use of the principles of justice in burden-sharing to maintain fairness.

Court cases and litigation

By December 2022, the number of climate change-related lawsuits had grown to 2,180, more than half in the U.S. (1,522 lawsuits). Based on existing laws, some relevant parties can already be forced into action (to the degree of accountability, monitoring and law enforcement capacities and assessments of feasibility) by means of courts.

Climate change litigation, also known as climate litigation, is an emerging body of environmental law using legal practice to set case law precedent to further climate change mitigation efforts from public institutions, such as governments and companies. In the face of slow climate change politics delaying climate change mitigation, activists and lawyers have increased efforts to use national and international judiciary systems to advance the effort. Climate litigation typically engages in one of five types of legal claims: Constitutional law (focused on breaches of constitutional rights by the state), administrative law (challenging the merits of administrative decision making), private law (challenging corporations or other organizations for negligence, nuisance, etc., fraud or consumer protection (challenging companies for misrepresenting information about climate impacts), or human rights (claiming that failure to act on climate change is a failure to protect human rights).

Rally for climate justice: Mass mobilization at the Chevron Oil Refinery in Richmond, California (2009)

Tens of thousands marching in Copenhagen for climate justice (2009)

Human rights

The COP26 Climate Change Conference...

... acknowledging that climate change is a common concern of humankind, Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity, ...

— The Glasgow climate pact
13 November 2021

Human rights and climate change is a conceptual and legal framework under which international human rights and their relationship to global warming are studied, analyzed, and addressed. The framework has been employed by governments, United Nations organizations, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, human rights and environmental advocates, and academics to guide national and international policy on climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the core international human rights instruments. In 2022 Working Group II of the IPCC suggested that "climate justice comprises justice that links development and human rights to achieve a rights-based approach to addressing climate change".

Challenges

Societal disruption and policy support

Climate justice may often conflict with social stability. For example, interventions that establish more just product pricing could result in social unrest. Socioeconomic decarbonization interventions could lead to decreased material possessions, number of freely choosable options, comfort, maintained habits and salaries, and also temporary increased unemployment rates. This may be problematic with current socioeconomic structures.

However, multiple studies estimate that if a rapid transition were to be implemented in certain ways the number of full-time jobs formally recognized in the economy could increase overall at least temporarily due to increased demand for labor to e.g. build public infrastructure and other green jobs to build the renewable energy system.

The urgent need for and extent of policies, especially when seeking to facilitate lifestyle-changes and shifts on an industry scale, could lead to social tension and decrease levels of public support for political parties in power. For instance, keeping gas prices low is often "really good for the poor and the middle class".

Loss and damage discussions

Some may see climate justice arguments for compensation by rich countries for disasters and similar problems in developing countries (as well as for domestic disasters) as a way for "limitless liability" by which at least high levels of compensations could drain a society's resources, efforts, focus and financial funds away from efficient preventive climate change mitigation towards e.g. immediate climate change relief compensations or climate-unrelated expenses of the receiving country or people.

Fossil-fuels dependent states

The US, China and Russia have cumulatively contributed the greatest amounts of CO₂ since 1850.

Many of the heaviest users of fossil fuels rely on them for a high percentage of their electricity.

Fossil fuel phase out is projected to affect states and their citizens with large or central industries of fossil-fuels extraction – including OPEC states – differently than other nations. These states have obstructed climate negotiations and it has been argued that, due to their wealth, they should not need to receive financial support from other countries but could implement adequate transitions on their own in terms of financial resources.

A study suggested governments of nations that have historically benefited from extraction should take the lead, with countries that have a high dependency on fossil fuels but low capacity for transition needing some support to follow. In particular, transitional impacts of a rapid extraction phase out is thought to be better absorbed in diversified, wealthier economies that should bear discrepancies in costs needed for a "just transition" as they are most able to bear it and may have better capacities for enacting absorptive socioeconomic policies.

Conflicting interest-driven interpretations as barriers to agreements

Different interpretations and perspectives, arising from different interests, needs, circumstances, expectations, considerations and histories, can lead to highly varying ideas of what is "fair". This may make it more difficult for countries to reach an agreement, similar to the prisoner's dilemma. Developing effective, legitimate and enforceable agreements could thereby be substantially complicated, especially if traditional methods or tools of policy-making are used, in-sum trusted third party expert authorities are absent and the scientific research base relevant for the decision-making – such as studies and data about the problem, potential mitigation measures and capacities – is not robust. Fundamental fairness principles could include:

Responsibility
Capability and
Rights (needs)

for which country characteristics can predict relative support.The shared problem-characteristics of climate change could incentivize developing countries to act in concert to deter developed countries from "passing their climate costs onto them" and thereby improve the global mitigation effectiveness to 1.5 °C.

History

Developed countries, as the main cause of climate change, in assuming their historical responsibility, must recognize and honor their climate debt in all of its dimensions as the basis for a just, effective, and scientific solution to climate change. (...) The focus must not be only on financial compensation, but also on restorative justice, understood as the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all its beings.

World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, People's Agreement, April 2010, Cochabamba, Bolivia

The concept of climate justice was deeply influential on climate negotiations years before the term "climate justice" was regularly applied to the concept. In December 1990 the United Nations appointed an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to draft what became the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), adopted at the UN Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. As the name "Environment and Development" indicated, the fundamental goal was to coordinate action on climate change with action on sustainable development. It was impossible to draft the text of the FCCC without confronting central questions of climate justice concerning how to share the responsibilities of slowing climate change fairly between developed nations and developing nations.

The issue of the fair terms for sharing responsibility was raised forcefully for the INC by statements about climate justice from developing countries. In response, the FCCC adopted the now-famous (and still-contentious) principles of climate justice embodied in Article 3.1: "The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof." The first principle of climate justice embedded in Article 3.1 is that calculations of benefits (and burdens) must include not only those for the present generation but also those for future generations. The second is that responsibilities are "common but differentiated", that is, every country has some responsibilities, but equitable responsibilities are different for different types of countries. The third is that a crucial instance of different responsibilities is that in fairness developed countries' responsibilities must be greater. How much greater continues to be debated politically.

In 2000, at the same time as the Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP 6), the first Climate Justice Summit took place in The Hague. This summit aimed to "affirm that climate change is a rights issue" and to "build alliances across states and borders" against climate change and in favor of sustainable development.

Subsequently, in August–September 2002, international environmental groups met in Johannesburg for the Earth Summit. At this summit, also known as Rio+10, as it took place ten years after the 1992 Earth Summit, the Bali Principles of Climate Justice were adopted.

Climate Justice affirms the rights of communities dependent on natural resources for their livelihood and cultures to own and manage the same in a sustainable manner, and is opposed to the commodification of nature and its resources.

Bali Principles of Climate Justice, article 18, August 29, 2002

In 2004, the Durban Group for Climate Justice was formed at an international meeting in Durban, South Africa. Here representatives from NGOs and peoples' movements discussed realistic policies for addressing climate change.

In 2007 at the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP 13) in Bali, the global coalition Climate Justice Now! was founded, and, in 2008, the Global Humanitarian Forum focused on climate justice at its inaugural meeting in Geneva.

In 2009, the Climate Justice Action Network was formed during the run-up to the Copenhagen Summit. It proposed civil disobedience and direct action during the summit, and many climate activists used the slogan 'system change not climate change'.

In April 2010, the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth took place in Tiquipaya, Bolivia. It was hosted by the government of Bolivia as a global gathering of civil society and governments. The conference published a "People's Agreement" calling, among other things, for greater climate justice.

In September 2013 the Climate Justice Dialogue convened by the Mary Robinson Foundation and the World Resources Institute released their Declaration on Climate Justice in an appeal to those drafting the proposed agreement to be negotiated at COP-21 in Paris in 2015.

In December 2018, the People's Demands for Climate Justice, signed by 292,000 individuals and 366 organizations, called upon government delegates at COP24 to comply with a list of six climate justice demands. One of the demands was to "Ensure developed countries honor their "Fair Shares" for largely fueling this crisis."

Some advance was achieved at the Paris climate finance summit at June 2023. The World Bank allowed to low income countries temporarily stop paying debts if they are hit by climate disaster. Most of financial help to climate vulnerable countries is coming in the form of debts, what often worsens the situation as those countries are overburdened with debts. Around 300 billion dollars was pledged as financial help in the next years, but trillions are needed to really solve the problem. More than 100 leading economists signed a letter calling for an extreme wealth tax as a solution (2% tax can generate around 2.5 trillion). It can serve as a loss and damage mechanism as the 1% of richest people is responsible for twice as many emissions as the poorest 50%.

Examples

Subsistence farmers in Latin America

Several studies that investigated the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Latin America suggest that in the poorer countries of Latin America, agriculture composes the most important economic sector and the primary form of sustenance for small farmers. Maize is the only grain still produced as a sustenance crop on small farms in Latin American nations. The projected decrease of this grain and other crops can threaten the welfare and the economic development of subsistence communities in Latin America. Food security is of particular concern to rural areas that have weak or non-existent food markets to rely on in the case food shortages. In August 2019, Honduras declared a state of emergency when a drought caused the southern part of the country to lose 72% of its corn and 75% of its beans. Food security issues are expected to worsen across Central America due to climate change. It is predicted that by 2070, corn yields in Central America may fall by 10%, beans by 29%, and rice by 14%. With Central American crop consumption dominated by corn (70%), beans (25%), and rice (6%), the expected drop in staple crop yields could have devastating consequences.

The expected impacts of climate change on subsistence farmers in Latin America and other developing regions are unjust for two reasons. First, subsistence farmers in developing countries, including those in Latin America are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change Second, these nations were the least responsible for causing the problem of anthropogenic induced climate.

Disproportionate vulnerability to climate disasters is socially determined. For example, socioeconomic and policy trends affecting smallholder and subsistence farmers limit their capacity to adapt to change. A history of policies and economic dynamics has negatively impacted rural farmers. During the 1950s and through the 1980s, high inflation and appreciated real exchange rates reduced the value of agricultural exports. As a result, farmers in Latin America received lower prices for their products compared to world market prices. Following these outcomes, Latin American policies and national crop programs aimed to stimulate agricultural intensification. These national crop programs benefitted larger commercial farmers more. In the 1980s and 1990s low world market prices for cereals and livestock resulted in decreased agricultural growth and increased rural poverty.

Perceived vulnerability to climate change differs even within communities, as in the example of subsistence farmers in Calakmul, Mexico.

Adaptive planning is challenged by the difficulty of predicting local scale climate change impacts. A crucial component to adaptation should include government efforts to lessen the effects of food shortages and famines. Planning for equitable adaptation and agricultural sustainability will require the engagement of farmers in decision-making processes.

Hurricane Katrina

Due to climate change, tropical cyclones are expected to increase in intensity and have increased rainfall, and have larger storm surges, but there might be fewer of them globally. These changes are driven by rising sea temperatures and increased maximum water vapour content of the atmosphere as the air heats up. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 showed how climate change disasters affect different people individually, as it had a disproportionate effect on low-income and minority groups. A study on the race and class dimensions of Hurricane Katrina suggests that those most vulnerable include poor, black, brown, elderly, sick, and homeless people. Low-income and black communities had little resources and limited mobility to evacuate before the storm. After the hurricane, low-income communities were most affected by contamination, and this was made worse by the fact that government relief measures failed to adequately assist those most at risk.

Wise use movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wise_use_movement

The wise use movement in the United States is a loose-knit coalition of groups promoting the expansion of private property rights and reduction of government regulation of publicly held property. This includes advocacy of expanded use by commercial and public interests, seeking increased access to public lands, and often opposition to government intervention. Wise use proponents describe human use of the environment as "stewardship of the land, the water and the air" for the benefit of human beings. The wise use movement arose from opposition to the mainstream environmental movement, claiming it to be radical.

Background to the movement

A range of groups belong to the wise use movement, including industry, grassroots organizations of loggers, mill workers, ranchers, farmers, miners, off-road vehicle users, and property owners. It also includes libertarians, populists, and religious and political conservatives. The movement became known as "wise use" after the 1988 Multiple Use Strategy Conference in Reno, Nevada. The movement includes or is supported by most anti-environmentalist groups, by companies in the resource extraction industry, by land development companies, and by libertarian and minarchist organizations. The movement was most active in the Western United States in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Major organizations

According to James McCarthy (2002), the most prominent wise use groups receive most of their support from resource extraction industries (Amoco, British Petroleum, Chevron, Exxon/Mobile, Marathon Oil) as well as the American Farm Bureau, Dupont, Yamaha, General Electric, General Motors, National Cattlemen's Association, and the National Rifle Association). The policies and political orientations of groups in the wise use movement range from some who self-identify as free-market environmentalists, to industry-backed public relations groups and mainstream think tanks, to some militia groups and fundamentalist religious groups. Major organizations promoting wise use ideas include Alliance for America, the American Land Rights Association, the Cato Institute, the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, People for the West, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, and the Heartland Institute.

Most members of the wise use movement, including the related County Movement, share a belief in individual rights, as opposed to the authority of the federal government, in particular with regard to the rights of land use. They argue that the environmental movement is both anti-private property and anti-people. While some in the wise use movement have strongly anti-environmental views, others assert that the free market, rather than government regulation, will better protect the environment.

Wise use agenda

Many wise use groups argue that rural residents suffer a disproportionate impact from environmental regulations, and that the environmental movement is biased toward the attitudes of urban elites, ignoring the rural perspective. Opponents observe that the extractive forces behind the wise use movement harm rural residents more and prey on the independence of rural residents - preaching the "right to ride" when behind that is the desire to strip mine and clearcut using unsustainable methods. Some environmentalists disagree with the Sierra Club's "no-cut forest" policy. Steve Thompson wrote the goal of the policy should be to "provide greater flexibility to achieve true forest restoration. A blanket, one-size-fits-all 'zero cut' policy severely restricts the Sierra Club's ability to provide solutions to complex forest mismanagement problems."

Wise use strategies

Wise use groups depict themselves as (and seek to promote themselves as) true environmentalists with close ties to the land, and cast environmental groups as advocating radical environmentalism. Wise use groups also downplay threats to the environment, and highlight uncertainties in environmental science that they argue environmental groups ignore or conceal. Wise use groups also portray the environmentalist movement as having a hidden agenda to control land.

Ron Arnold and wise use

The Wise Use movement first gained prominence in 1988 when Ron Arnold, a vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, helped an organize conference that led to adoption of a 25-point "Wise Use Agenda". This agenda included initiatives seeking unrestricted commercial use of public lands for timber, mining, and oil, and to open recreational wilderness areas for easier access by the general public. Critics point out that Ron Arnold has been quoted as saying his goal is to "destroy the environmental movement".

According to Arnold, many in the wise use movement believe the possibility of unlimited economic growth, in which environmental and social problems can be mitigated by market economy and the use of technology. In his book Ecology Wars, which has been called the "Bible" of the wise use movement, Arnold writes: "Environmentalism is an institutionalized movement of certain people with a certain ideology about man and nature" and that "the goal of our ecology wars should be to defeat environmentalism." Arnold claims that environmentalism is "the excess baggage of anti-technology, of anti-civilization, of anti-humanity, and of institutionalized lust for political power."

Access to public lands

In the 1980s and 1990s, the management focus on public lands shifted from the harvest of timber to ecological goals such as improvement of habitat, largely as a response to the environmental movement. The resultant reduction in timber harvest contributed to the closure of sawmills and the layoff of loggers and other workers. Some members of the wise use movement objected to what they saw as a shifting of control of federal land resources from local to outside, urban interests. They argued that the National Forests were established for the benefit of the local community. They cite Gifford Pinchot, who wrote "It is the duty of the Forest Service to see to it that the timber, water-powers, mines, and every other resource of the forests is used for the benefit of the people who live in the neighborhood or who may have a share in the welfare of each locality." Wise use members have also argued that continued access to public lands is necessary to maintain the health, culture and traditions of local communities.

Jill M. Belsky, a professor of Rural & Environmental Sociology at the University of Montana, wrote:

"there is a pattern for rural peoples and communities to be viewed as destroyers of nature in the United States, given their reliance on extractive industries such as mining, logging, grazing and commercial, petrochemical based-farming; and they provided political action in support of these industries. Given this history, it is not surprising that there has been a reluctance on the part of conservationists to envision how rural peoples and rural livelihoods could have played any significant role in the formation of wildlands or in any potential role they could play in the restoration and protection of large wildlands in the future. In the United States policy emphasizes ecosystems and ecosystem management. But while I understand this logic, I think it underestimates the importance of rural places, peoples and livelihoods in the management of large wildlands."

Criticism

Academics Ralph Maughan and Douglas Nilsona write that wise use is a "desperate effort to defend the hegemony of the cultural and economic values of the agricultural and extractive industries of the rural West", and have "argued that the Wise Use agenda stemmed from an ideology that combined laissez-faire capitalism with cultural characteristics of an imagined Old West".

Some critics of the wise use movement claim that the strong rhetoric used has deepened divisions between opposing interest groups, and has indirectly increased violence and threats of violence against environmental groups and public employees. "Many observers noted that Wise Use activity in some areas overlapped heavily with the 1990s formation and growth of militias, self-styled volunteer paramilitary organizations presciently committed to their own version of homeland security."

Environmental historian Richard White has criticized Wise Use for upholding the rights of large landowners at the expense of working rural people in his essay, "'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature."

Broadcast journalist Stephenie Hendricks claimed in her book Divine Destruction that wise use is in part "being driven by biblical fundamentalists who believe exhausting natural resources will hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ."

Grassroots or front groups

Environmental activists have argued that the wise use movement is orchestrated largely or entirely by industry. David Helvarg's book The War Against the Greens contends that the wise use movement is not a collection of grassroots uprisings, but a set of astroturfing movements created by big business. Carl Deal, author of The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations also makes the same claim: that wise use groups give the appearance of being popular grassroots movements, but are actually front organizations for industry groups with a financial interest in the movement's agenda. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. also described this conspiracy against the environment by wise use organizations in his 2004 book Crimes Against Nature.

These critics have largely portrayed so-called "grassroots" groups as being front groups and rural Westerners as serving as dupes for extractive industries and their interests. However, while corporate power played an important role in the wise use movement, the relationship between rural westerners and extractive industries was not a result of individual citizens blindly accepting corporate narratives; instead, wise use was an alliance between groups with similar goals regarding private property rights and access to public lands. Corporations also were better able to connect with rural residents because, according to James McCarthy, "[c]orporations were in fact often more sensitive to the region's cultural politics than many environmentalists and so were better able to engage culture for instrumental purposes."

History

The term wise use was coined in 1910 by U.S. Forest Service leader Gifford Pinchot to describe his concept of sustainable harvest of natural resources.

Today's wise use coalition has appropriated a nineteenth-century term. According to historian Douglas McCleery, the idea of "conservation as wise use" of natural resources began with conservation leader Gifford Pinchot in the late nineteenth century. The original "wise use" movement was a product of the Progressive Era, and included the concept of multiple use—public land can be used simultaneously for recreation, for timber, for mining, and for wildlife habitat. The multiple-use and wise use concepts advocated by Pinchot reflected the view that nature's resources should be scientifically managed so as "to protect the basic productivity of the land and its ability to serve future generations."

The modern use of the term "wise use" to refer to opposition to the environmental movement dates to the publication of Ron Arnold's book Wise Use Agenda in 1989. The wise use movement has it roots in both the earlier "Sagebrush Rebellion" in the western United States during the late 1970s and to the earlier opposition to the formation of the national forests.

However, unlike the Sagebrush Rebellion, which consisted largely of the formation of industry public relations groups by resource extraction industries and corporations such as Coors and Co, wise use included grassroots groups. Ron Arnold argued that the inclusion of citizen groups would make the movement more effective. In 1979, in Logging Management magazine, Arnold wrote: "Citizen activist groups, allied to the forest industry, are vital to our future survival. They can speak for us in the public interest where we ourselves cannot. They are not limited by liability, contract law or ethical codes... industry must come to support citizen activist groups, providing funds, materials, transportation, and most of all, hard facts."

James McCarthy wrote:

The Wise Use movement is a broad coalition of over a thousand national, state, and local groups. Its existence by this name dates from a 1988 'Multiple-Use Strategy Conference' attended by nearly 200 organizations, mainly Western-based, including natural resource industry corporations and trade associations, law firms specializing in combating environmental regulations, and recreational groups. The conference produced a legislative agenda intended to 'destroy environmentalism' and promote the 'wise use' of natural resources - an intentionally ambiguous phrase strategically appropriated from the early conservation movement.

Environmental movement in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_movement_in_the_United_States

The organized environmental movement is represented by a wide range of non-governmental organizations or NGOs that seek to address environmental issues in the United States. They operate on local, national, and international scales. Environmental NGOs vary widely in political views and in the ways they seek to influence the environmental policy of the United States and other governments.

The environmental movement today consists of both large national groups and also many smaller local groups with local concerns. Some resemble the old U.S. conservation movement - whose modern expression is The Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society and National Geographic Society - American organizations with a worldwide influence. Increasingly that movement is organized around addressing climate change in the United States alongside interrelated issues like climate justice and broader environmental justice issues.

Issues

Environmental issues in the United States include climate change, energy, species conservation, invasive species, deforestation, mining, nuclear accidents, pesticides, pollution, waste and over-population. Despite taking hundreds of measures, the rate of environmental issues is increasing rapidly instead of reducing. The United States is among the most significant emitters of greenhouse gasses in the world. In terms of both total and per capita emissions, it is among the largest contributors. The climate policy of the United States has a major influence on the world.

Scope of the movement

The early Conservation movement, which began in the late 19th century, included fisheries and wildlife management, water, soil conservation and sustainable forestry. Today it includes sustainable yield of natural resources, preservation of wilderness areas and biodiversity.
The modern Environmental movement, which began in the 1960s with concern about air and water pollution, became broader in scope to include all landscapes and human activities. See List of environmental issues.
Environmental health movement dating at least to Progressive Era (the 1890s - 1920s) urban reforms including clean water supply, more efficient removal of raw sewage and reduction in crowded and unsanitary living conditions. Today Environmental health is more related to nutrition, preventive medicine, ageing well and other concerns specific to the human body's well-being.
Sustainability movement which started in the 1980s focused on Gaia theory, value of Earth and other interrelations between human sciences and human responsibilities. Its spinoff deep ecology was more spiritual but often claimed to be science.

As public awareness and the environmental sciences have improved in recent years, environmental issues have broadened to include key concepts such as "sustainability" and also new emerging concerns such as ozone depletion, global warming, acid rain, land use and biogenetic pollution.

Environmental movements often interact or are linked with other social movements, e.g. for peace, human rights, and animal rights; and against nuclear weapons and/or nuclear power, endemic diseases, poverty, hunger, etc.

Some US colleges are now going green by signing the "President's Climate Commitment," a document that a college President can sign to enable said colleges to practice environmentalism by switching to solar power, etc.

Membership of selected US environmental organizations (thousands)
	1971	1981	1992	1997	2004
Sierra Club (1892)	124	246	615	569	736
National Audubon Society (1905)	115	400	600	550	550
National Parks Conservation Association (1919)	49	27	230	375	375
Izaak Walton League (1922)	54	48	51	42	45
Wilderness Society (1935)	62	52	365	237	225
National Wildlife Federation (1936)	540	818	997	650	650
Defenders of Wildlife (1947)	13	50	77	215	463
The Nature Conservancy (1951)	22	80	545	865	972
WWF-US (1961)	n.a.	n.a.	970	1,200	1,200
Environmental Defense Fund (1967)	20	46	175	300	350
Friends of the Earth (US) (1969)	7	25	30	20	35
Natural Resources Defense Council (1970)	5	40	170	260	450
Greenpeace USA (1975)	n.a.	n.a.	2,225	400	250

History

Native Americans are frequently categorized as "the original environmentalists", however this assertion is frequently challenged for being overly simplistic. Early European settlers came to the United States brought from Europe the concept of the commons. In the colonial era, access to natural resources was allocated by individual towns, and disputes over fisheries or land use were resolved at the local level. Changing technologies, however, strained traditional ways of resolving disputes of resource use, and local governments had limited control over powerful special interests. For example, the damming of rivers for mills cut off upriver towns from fisheries; logging and clearing of forest in watersheds harmed local fisheries downstream. In New England, many farmers became uneasy as they noticed clearing of the forest changed stream flows and a decrease in bird population which helped control insects and other pests. These concerns become widely known with the publication of Man and Nature (1864) by George Perkins Marsh. The environmental impact method of analysis is generally the main mode for determining what issues the environmental movement is involved in. This model is used to determine how to proceed in situations that are detrimental to the environment by choosing the way that is least damaging and has the fewest lasting implications.

Conservation movement

Conservation first became a national issue during the progressive era's conservation movement (1890s - 1920s). The early national conservation movement shifted emphasis to scientific management which favored larger enterprises and control began to shift from local governments to the states and the federal government.(Judd) Some writers credit sportsmen, hunters and fishermen with the increasing influence of the conservation movement. In the 1870s sportsman magazines such as American Sportsmen, Forest and Stream, and Field and Stream are seen as leading to the growth of the conservation movement.(Reiger) This conservation movement also urged the establishment of state and national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, and national monuments intended to preserve noteworthy natural features. Conservation groups focus primarily on an issue that's origins are rooted in general expansion. As industrialization became more prominent as well as the increasing trend towards urbanization the conservative environmental movement began. Contrary to popular belief conservation groups are not against expansion in general, instead, they are concerned with efficiency with resources and land development.

Progressive era

The conservation policies of Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt and his close ally George Bird Grinnell, were motivated by the wanton waste that was taking place at the hand of market hunting. This practice resulted in placing a large number of North American game species on the edge of extinction. Roosevelt recognized that the laissez-faire approach of the U.S. Government was too wasteful and inefficient. In any case, they noted, most of the natural resources in the western states were already owned by the federal government. The best course of action, they argued, was a long-term plan devised by national experts to maximize the long-term economic benefits of natural resources. To accomplish the mission, Roosevelt and Grinnell formed the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887. The club was made up of the best minds and influential men of the day. The Boone and Crockett Club's contingency of conservationists, scientists, politicians, and intellectuals became Roosevelt's closest advisers during his march to preserve wildlife and habitat across North America. As president, Theodore Roosevelt became a prominent conservationist, putting the issue high on the national agenda. He worked with all the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter, Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt was deeply committed to conserving natural resources and is considered to be the nation's first conservation President. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230,000,000 acres (93,000,000 ha) under federal protection. Roosevelt set aside more Federal land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.

Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 Bird Reserves, four Game Preserves, and 150 National Forests, including Shoshone National Forest, the nation's first. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230,000,000 acres (930,000 km²).

Gifford Pinchot had been appointed by McKinley as chief of Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. In 1905, his department gained control of the national forest reserves. Pinchot promoted private use (for a fee) under federal supervision. In 1907, Roosevelt designated sixteen million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests just minutes before a deadline.

In May 1908, Roosevelt sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on natural resources and their most efficient use. Roosevelt delivered the opening address: "Conservation as a National Duty."

In 1903 Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, who had a very different view of conservation and tried to minimize commercial use of water resources and forests. Working through the Sierra Club he founded, Muir succeeded in 1905 in having Congress transfer the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the National Park Service. While Muir wanted nature preserved for the sake of pure beauty, Roosevelt subscribed to Pinchot's formulation, "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees." Muir and the Sierra Club vehemently opposed the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite in order to provide water to the city of San Francisco. Roosevelt and Pinchot supported the dam, as did President Woodrow Wilson. The Hetch Hetchy dam was finished in 1923 and is still in operation, but the Sierra Club still wants to tear it down.

Other influential conservationists of the Progressive Era included George Bird Grinnell (a prominent sportsman who founded the Boone and Crockett Club), the Izaak Walton League and John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club in 1892. Conservationists organized the National Parks Conservation Association, the Audubon Society, and other groups that still remain active.

New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–45), like his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, was an ardent conservationist. He used numerous programs of the departments of Agriculture and Interior to end wasteful land-use, mitigate the effects of the Dust Bowl, and efficiently develop natural resources in the West. One of the most popular of all New Deal programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933–1943), which sent two million poor young men to work in rural and wilderness areas, primarily on conservation projects.

Post-1945

After World War II increasing encroachment on wilderness land evoked the continued resistance of conservationists, who succeeded in blocking a number of projects in the 1950s and 1960s, including the proposed Bridge Canyon Dam that would have backed up the waters of the Colorado River into the Grand Canyon National Park.

The Inter-American Conference on the Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources met in 1948 as a collection of nearly 200 scientists from all over the Americans forming the trusteeship principle that:

"No generation can exclusively own the renewable resources by which it lives. We hold the commonwealth in trust for prosperity, and to lessen or destroy it is to commit treason against the future"

Beginning of the modern movement

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, several events occurred which raised the public awareness of harm to the environment caused by man. In 1954, the 23 man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon was exposed to radioactive fallout from a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll. By 1969, the public reaction to an ecologically catastrophic oil spill from an offshore well in California's Santa Barbara Channel, Barry Commoner's protest against nuclear testing, along with Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, and Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1968) all added anxiety about the environment. Pictures of Earth from space emphasized that the earth was small and fragile.

As the public became more aware of environmental issues, concern about air pollution, water pollution, solid waste disposal, dwindling energy resources, radiation, pesticide poisoning (particularly use of DDT as described in Carson's influential Silent Spring), noise pollution, and other environmental problems engaged a broadening number of sympathizers. That public support for environmental concerns was widespread became clear in the Earth Day demonstrations of 1970.

Several books after the middle of the 20th century contributed to the rise of American environmentalism (as distinct from the longer-established conservation movement), especially among college and university students and the more literate public. One was the publication of the first textbook on ecology, Fundamentals of Ecology, by Eugene Odum and Howard Odum, in 1953. Another was the appearance of the Carson's 1962 best-seller Silent Spring. Her book brought about a whole new interpretation of pesticides by exposing their harmful effects in nature. From this book, many began referring to Carson as the "mother of the environmental movement". Another influential development was a 1965 lawsuit, Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, opposing the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York (state), which is said to have given birth to modern United States environmental law. The wide popularity of The Whole Earth Catalogs, starting in 1968, was quite influential among the younger, hands-on, activist generation of the 1960s and 1970s. Recently, in addition to opposing environmental degradation and protecting wilderness, an increased focus on coexisting with natural biodiversity has appeared, a strain that is apparent in the movement for sustainable agriculture and in the concept of Reconciliation Ecology.

During his time as U.S President, Lyndon Johnson would sign over 300 environment protection measures into law. This was credited as forming the legal basis of the modern environmental movement.

Wilderness preservation

In the modern wilderness preservation movement, important philosophical roles are played by the writings of John Muir who had been activist in the late 19th and early 20th century. Along with Muir perhaps most influential in the modern movement is Henry David Thoreau who published Walden in 1854. Also important was forester and ecologist Aldo Leopold, one of the founders of the Wilderness Society in 1935, who wrote a classic of nature observation and ethical philosophy, A Sand County Almanac, (1949).

There is also a growing movement of campers and other people who enjoy outdoor recreation activities to help preserve the environment while spending time in the wilderness.

Anti-nuclear movement

The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups that have acted to oppose nuclear power or nuclear weapons, or both, in the United States. These groups include the Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Physicians for Social Responsibility. The anti-nuclear movement has delayed construction or halted commitments to build some new nuclear plants, and has pressured the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enforce and strengthen the safety regulations for nuclear power plants.

Anti-nuclear protests reached a peak in the 1970s and 1980s and grew out of the environmental movement. Campaigns which captured national public attention involved the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, and Three Mile Island. On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history. International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on June 20, 1983 at 50 sites across the United States. There were many Nevada Desert Experience protests and peace camps at the Nevada Test Site during the 1980s and 1990s.

More recent campaigning by anti-nuclear groups has related to several nuclear power plants including the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Power Plant, Indian Point Energy Center, Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station, Salem Nuclear Power Plant, and Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. There have also been campaigns relating to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant, the Idaho National Laboratory, proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the Hanford Site, the Nevada Test Site, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and transportation of nuclear waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Some scientists and engineers have expressed reservations about nuclear power, including: Barry Commoner, S. David Freeman, John Gofman, Arnold Gundersen, Mark Z. Jacobson, Amory Lovins, Arjun Makhijani, Gregory Minor, Joseph Romm and Benjamin K. Sovacool. Scientists who have opposed nuclear weapons include Linus Pauling and Eugene Rabinowitch.

Antitoxics groups

Antitoxics groups are a subgroup that is affiliated with the Environmental Movement in the United States, that is primarily concerned with the effects that cities and their by-products have on humans. This aspect of the movement is a self-proclaimed "movement of housewives". Concern around the issues of groundwater contamination and air pollution rose in the early 1980s and individuals involved in antitoxics groups claim that they are concerned for the health of their families. A prominent case can be seen in the Love Canal Homeowner's association (LCHA); in this case, a housing development was built on a site that had been used for toxic dumping by the Hooker Chemical Company. As a result of this dumping, the residents had symptoms of skin irritation, Lois Gibbs, a resident of the development, started a grassroots campaign for reparations. Eventual success led to the government having to purchase homes that were sold in the development.

Federal legislation in the 1970s

Prior to the 1970s the protection of basic air and water supplies was a matter mainly left to each state. During the 1970s, the primary responsibility for clean air and water shifted to the federal government. Growing concerns, both environmental and economic, from cities and towns as well as sportsman and other local groups, and senators such as Maine's Edmund S. Muskie, led to the passage of extensive legislation, notably the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. Other legislation included the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which established the Council on Environmental Quality; the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972; the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1977, which became known as the Clean Water Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly known as the Superfund Act (1980). These laws regulated public drinking water systems, toxic substances, pesticides, and ocean dumping; and protected wildlife, wilderness, and wild and scenic rivers. Moreover, the new laws provide for pollution research, standard setting, contaminated site cleanup, monitoring, and enforcement.

The creation of these laws led to a major shift in the environmental movement. Groups such as the Sierra Club shifted focus from local issues to becoming a lobby in Washington and new groups, for example, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense, arose to influence politics as well. (Larson)

Renewed focus on local action

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan sought to curtail the scope of environmental protection taking steps such as appointing James G. Watt. The major environmental groups responded with mass mailings which led to increased membership and donations.

When industry groups lobbied to weaken regulation and a backlash against environmental regulations, the so-called wise use movement gained importance and influence.(Larson)

"Post-environmentalism"

In 2004, with the environmental movement seemingly stalled, some environmentalists started questioning whether "environmentalism" was even a useful political framework. According to a controversial essay titled "The Death of Environmentalism " (Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, 2004) American environmentalism has been remarkably successful in protecting the air, water, and large stretches of wilderness in North America and Europe, but these environmentalists have stagnated as a vital force for cultural and political change.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus wrote, "Today environmentalism is just another special interest. Evidence for this can be found in its concepts, its proposals, and its reasoning. What stands out is how arbitrary environmental leaders are about what gets counted and what doesn't as 'environmental.' Most of the movement's leading thinkers, funders, and advocates do not question their most basic assumptions about who we are, what we stand for, and what it is that we should be doing." Their essay was followed by a speech in San Francisco called "Is Environmentalism Dead?" by former Sierra Club President, Adam Werbach, who argued for the evolution of environmentalism into a more expansive, relevant and powerful progressive politics. Werbach endorsed building an environmental movement that is more relevant to average Americans and controversially chose to lead Wal-Mart's effort to take sustainability mainstream.

These "post-environmental movement" thinkers argue that the ecological crises the human species faces in the 21st century are qualitatively different from the problems the environmental movement was created to address in the 1960s and 1970s. They argue that climate change and habitat destruction are global and more complex, therefore demanding far deeper transformations of the economy, the culture and political life. The consequence of environmentalism's outdated and arbitrary definition, they argue, is a political irrelevancy.

These "politically neutral" groups tend to avoid global conflicts and view the settlement of inter-human conflict as separate from regard for nature – in direct contradiction to the ecology movement and peace movement which have increasingly close links: while Green Parties, Greenpeace, and groups like the ACTivist Magazine regard ecology, biodiversity, and an end to non-human extinction as an absolute basis for peace, the local groups may not, and see a high degree of global competition and conflict as justifiable if it lets them preserve their own local uniqueness. However, such groups tend not to "burn out" and to sustain for long periods, even generations, protecting the same local treasures.

Local groups increasingly find that they benefit from collaboration, e.g. on consensus decision-making methods, or making simultaneous policy, or relying on common legal resources, or even sometimes a common glossary. However, the differences between the various groups that make up the modern environmental movement tend to outweigh such similarities, and they rarely co-operate directly except on a few major global questions. In a notable exception, over 1,000 local groups from around the country united for a single day of action as part of the Step It Up 2007 campaign for real solutions to global warming.

Groups such as The Bioregional Revolution are calling on the need to bridge these differences, as the converging problems of the 21st century they claim compel the people to unite and to take decisive action. They promote bioregionalism, permaculture, and local economies as solutions to these problems, overpopulation, global warming, global epidemics, and water scarcity, but most notably to "peak oil" – the prediction that the country is likely to reach a maximum in global oil production which could spell drastic changes in many aspects of the residents' everyday lives.

Criticisms

Some people are skeptical of the environmental movement and feel that it is more deeply rooted in politics than science. Although there have been serious debates about climate change and effects of some pesticides and herbicides that mimic animal sex steroids, science has shown that some of the claims of environmentalists have credence.

Novelist Michael Crichton appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on September 28, 2005, to address concerns and recommended the employment of double-blind experimentation in environmental research. Crichton suggested that because environmental issues are so political in nature, policymakers need neutral, conclusive data to base their decisions on, rather than conjecture and rhetoric, and double-blind experiments are the most efficient way to achieve that aim.

A consistent theme acknowledged by both supporters and critics (though more commonly vocalized by critics) of the environmental movement is that we know very little about the Earth we live in. Most fields of environmental studies are relatively new, and therefore what research we have is limited and does not date far enough back for us to completely understand long-term environmental trends. This has led a number of environmentalists to support the use of the precautionary principle in policy-making, which ultimately asserts that we don't know how certain actions may affect the environment and because there is reason to believe they may cause more harm than good we should refrain from such actions.

Elitist

In the December 1994 Wild Forest Review, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair wrote "The mainstream environmental movement was elitist, highly paid, detached from the people, indifferent to the working class, and a firm ally of big government.…The environmental movement is now accurately perceived as just another well-financed and cynical special interest group, its rancid infrastructure supported by Democratic Party operatives and millions in grants from corporate foundations."

Many environmental organizations lack diversity, including often white women as the main demographic. However, environmental problems are experienced differently by different social groups, including black versus white groups. For the middle class white population in the US, environmental issues have often included pollution, barriers to recreational activities, etc.. On the other hand, for people of color, environmental issues were often life or death including issues of "smoke, soot, dust, . . . fumes gases, stench, and carbon monoxide." In the past environmental organizations have focused "on preserving natural resources and endangered species instead of protecting people of color from hazardous waste sites being built in their communities". When environmental organizations appoint people of color to positions of leadership, the focus will often shift more towards focus on these major, life-threatening issues. However, a significant 2014 State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations study found that the percentage of minorities working for environmental organizations has never exceeded 16% and less than 12% have achieved positions of leadership.

Wilderness myth

Historians have criticized the modern environmental movement for having romantic idealizations of wilderness. William Cronon writes "wilderness serves as the unexamined foundation on which so many of the quasi-religious values of modern environmentalism rest." Cronon claims that "to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead."

Similarly Michael Pollan has argued that the wilderness ethic leads people to dismiss areas whose wildness is less than absolute. In his book Second Nature, Pollan writes that "once a landscape is no longer 'virgin' it is typically written off as fallen, lost to nature, irredeemable."

Debates within the movement

Within the environmental movement, an ideological debate has taken place between those with an ecocentric viewpoint and an anthropocentric viewpoint. The anthropocentric view has been seen as the conservationist approach to the environment with nature viewed, at least in part, as a resource to be used by man. In contrast to the conservationist approach the ecocentric view, associated with John Muir, Henry David Thoreau and William Wordsworth referred to as the preservationist movement. This approach sees nature in a more spiritual way. Many environmental historians consider the split between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. During the preservation/conservation debate, the term preservationist becomes to be seen as a pejorative term.

While the ecocentric view focused on biodiversity and wilderness protection the anthropocentric view focuses on urban pollution and social justice. Some environmental writers, for example, William Cronon have criticized the ecocentric view as have a dualist view as a man being separate from nature. Critics of the anthropocentric viewpoint contend that the environmental movement has been taken over by so-called leftist with an agenda beyond environmental protection.

Environmentalism and politics

Environmentalists gained popularity in American politics after the creation or strengthening of numerous US environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the formation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970. These successes were followed by the enactment of a series of laws regulating waste including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Toxic substances, (Toxic Substances Control Act); Pesticides (FIFRA: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act); clean-up of polluted sites (Superfund); protection of endangered species (Endangered Species Act).

Fewer environmental laws have been passed in the last decade as corporations and other conservative interests have increased their influence over American politics. Corporate cooperation against environmental lobbyists has been organized by the Wise Use group. At the same time, many environmentalists have been turning toward other means of persuasion, such as working with business, community, and other partners to promote sustainable development. Since the 1970s, coalitions and interests groups have directed themselves along the democrat and republican party lines.

Much environmental activism is directed towards conservation as well as the prevention or elimination of pollution. However, conservation movements; ecology movements; peace movements; green parties; green- and eco-anarchists often subscribe to very different ideologies, while supporting the same goals as those who call themselves "environmentalists". To outsiders, these groups or factions can appear to be indistinguishable.

As human population and industrial activity continue to increase, environmentalists often find themselves in serious conflict with those who believe that human and industrial activities should not be overly regulated or restricted, such as some libertarians.

Environmentalists often clash with others, particularly corporate interests, over issues of the management of natural resources, like in the case of the atmosphere as a "carbon dump", the focus of climate change, and global warming controversy. They usually seek to protect commonly owned or unowned resources for future generations.

Environmental justice in the United States

Environmental justice is a movement that began in the U.S. in the 1980s and seeks an end to environmental racism. Environmental justice (EJ) did not come into regular use until 1982 when Warren County, a predominantly African American community, became a site for toxic waste dumping. This sparked protests which eventually led to the arrest of 414 peaceful African American protestors. In 1987, the publication of the United Church of Christ (UCC) Commission for Racial Justice’s report “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States" offered the first clear description of environmental racism (ER). ER looks different in different communities, and each context requires distinct policies and actions. Closely related to ER, the environmental justice movement is also grassroots in practice and “importantly, a movement, which means that it starts and lives with the people”.

Often, low-income and minority communities are located close to highways, garbage dumps, and factories, where they are exposed to greater pollution and environmental health risk than the rest of the population. The Environmental Justice movement seeks to link "social" and "ecological" environmental concerns, while at the same time keeping environmentalists conscious of the dynamics in their own movement, i.e. racism, sexism, homophobia, classicism, and other malaises of the dominant culture.

In 1991, the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit drafted the 17 principles of environmental justice calling for an “appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives” along with the “ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction”. Throughout the EJ movement there has been a focus on everyone being safe from environmental harms including pollution, hazardous wastes, land access, and also the ability of all to participate in decision-making. Over time, the main principle that has developed within the movement is “We speak for ourselves” meaning those within the community experiencing the environmental injustice should be the leaders of change.

Major US environmental justice organizations

Communities for a Better Environment: An organization founded in 1978 in San Francisco, California with the main mission of building power for low-income and communities of color to ultimately achieve environmental justice. They focus on reducing pollution and helping to create healthy, environmentally-friendly communities. In order to create action to tackle such an encompassing mission, CBE follows a threefold approach including community organizing, legal advocacy, and science. CBE, focuses on bringing marginalized communities together to create power and hence change in environmental decisions in their local areas. Volunteers from throughout the community come together to participate in door-knocking, community meetings, school groups, and various other educational opportunities. Today Communities for a Better Environment has expanded into Wisconsin and Minnesota.

West Harlem Environmental Action: An organization founded in 1988 in New York city by community members foregrounding environmental racism within their community. West Harlem Environmental Action, now known as We Act, works on issues of climate justice, ensuring community-based participatory research, and participatory democracy are upheld within their organization and throughout the Harlem community. They mainly tackle issues of air regulation, pollution, and fair land use. Today, We Act has expanded to Washington, D.C.
Indigenous Environmental Network: An organization founded in 1990 in North America with the main mission of uniting indigenous communities to protect "sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities". IEN works with tribes to increase environmental education, organization, and in turn inspire action. IEN has expanded its reach globally, in recent years, providing global meetings to Indigenous communities on indigenous environmental issues.
Climate Justice Alliance: An organization founded in 2013 in Detroit, Michigan with the main mission of uniting communities and organizations to following the just transition theory, versus the exploitative economic system in place. They place a strong emphasis on race, gender, and class in creating this transition. With creating this link between organizations and communities they hope to inspire action towards confronting climate change and the economy that creates it. Climate Justice Alliance focuses on making the transition within local communities to "clean community energy, regional food systems, zero waste, efficient, affordable, and durable housing, public transportation, ecosystem restoration and stewardship within scientific planetary boundaries". Climate Justice Alliance has currently expanded in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and North Carolina.

Environmental rights

Many environmental lawsuits turn on the question of who has standing; are the legal issues limited to property owners, or does the general public have a right to intervene? Christopher D. Stone's 1972 essay, "Should trees have standing?" seriously addressed the question of whether natural objects themselves should have legal rights, including the right to participate in lawsuits. Stone suggested that there was nothing absurd in this view, and noted that many entities now regarded as having legal rights were, in the past, regarded as "things" that were regarded as legally rightless; for example, aliens, children and women. His essay is sometimes regarded as an example of the fallacy of hypostatization.

One of the earliest lawsuits to establish that citizens may sue for environmental and aesthetic harms was Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, decided in 1965 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The case helped halt the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York State. See also United States environmental law and David Sive, an attorney who was involved in the case.

Conservation biology is an important and rapidly developing field. One way to avoid the stigma of an "ism" was to evolve early anti-nuclear groups into the more scientific Green Parties, sprout new NGOs such as Greenpeace and Earth Action, and devoted groups to protecting global biodiversity and preventing global warming and climate change. But in the process, much of the emotional appeal, and many of the original aesthetic goals were lost. Nonetheless, these groups have well-defined ethical and political views, backed by science.

Radical environmentalism

Main article: Radical environmentalism

While most environmentalists are often mainstream and peaceful, other groups are more radical in their approach. Adherents of radical environmentalism and ecological anarchism are involved in direct action campaigns to protect the environment. Some campaigns have employed controversial tactics including sabotage, blockades, and arson, while most use peaceful protests such as marches, tree sitting, and the like. There is substantial debate within the environmental movement as to the acceptability of these tactics, but almost all environmentalists condemn violent actions that can harm humans.

Clashes by police

In 2023, for the first time in the history of the United States, the police killed an environmental activist during a protest. The protesters were camping in Atlanta's South River Forest, a natural area that the City of Atlanta and Police planned to raze in order to erect a police training facility to be called "Cop City." Police attacked protesters on 18 January 2023. One protester, Tortuguita or, Manuel Esteban Páez Terán was killed and seven more were arrested.

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Friday, July 19, 2024

Climate justice

Definition and objectives

Causes of injustice

Economic systems

Systemic causes

Disproportionality between causality and burden

Intergenerational equity

Disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged groups

Responses to improve climate justice

Common principles of justice in burden-sharing

Court cases and litigation

Human rights

Challenges

Societal disruption and policy support

Loss and damage discussions

Fossil-fuels dependent states

Conflicting interest-driven interpretations as barriers to agreements

History

Examples

Subsistence farmers in Latin America

Hurricane Katrina

Wise use movement

Background to the movement

Major organizations

Wise use agenda

Wise use strategies

Ron Arnold and wise use

Access to public lands

Criticism

Grassroots or front groups

History

Environmental movement in the United States

Issues

Scope of the movement

History

Conservation movement

Progressive era

New Deal

Post-1945

Beginning of the modern movement

Wilderness preservation

Anti-nuclear movement

Antitoxics groups

Federal legislation in the 1970s

Renewed focus on local action

"Post-environmentalism"

Criticisms

Elitist

Wilderness myth

Debates within the movement

Environmentalism and politics

Environmental justice in the United States

Major US environmental justice organizations

Environmental rights

Radical environmentalism

Clashes by police

Pantheism