Why won't America's environmentalists accept positive developments?

by Lisa Renstrom and Bob Perkowitz
10 Aug 2006

Wake Up and Smell the Progress
There are winners, there are losers, and there
are people who just don't get it.

If you've been paying attention, you know that in
spite of the best efforts of tens of thousands of
dedicated environmentalists and the spending of
literally hundreds of millions of philanthropic
dollars, the environment has been losing.

Hey greens, open your eyes. Not to stretch a
point, but if America's environmentalists were
more effective, we might not be suffering from
the wars and trade deficits our dependence on oil
brings. We might not be spending quite so much --
the highest percentage of GDP of any country in
the world -- on health care.

Face it: environmentalists have been outgunned
and outsmarted. But there is hope. Things are
starting to change. Powerful people with black
hats are trading them in for green capes.

Topping that list is the popular evangelical
minister Pat Robertson. He publicly stated last
week that, "We really need to address the burning
of fossil fuels. It is getting hotter, and the
icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of
carbon dioxide in the air. " That alone has to
give one pause. Could it be that the scientists
were right?

Then there's Frank Luntz, spinmeister
extraordinaire of the authoritarian Republicans,
recently admitting that, "It's now 2006. I think
most people would conclude that there is global
warming taking place and that the behavior of
humans are affecting the climate. " Say what?

If that isn't enough to challenge your worldview,
try Wal-Mart. No paragraph is long enough to
contain the cultural and environmental
destruction of their massively efficient
consumption and international worker exploitation
machine. But that self-same Wal-Mart is embarking
on a comprehensive sustainability program that
includes emission reductions and organics -- the
whole shebang.

And finally we have the Sierra Club, America's
preeminent environmental organization, daring to
endorse a Republican senator, Lincoln Chafee of
Rhode Island.

The conversion of Robertson, Luntz, and Wal-Mart
and the leadership of the Sierra Club are beyond
the cognitive dissonance resolution capabilities
of some environmentalists. All these people
getting in touch with reality is more progress
than some progressives can understand, much less
support.

Here in Grist last month, John Sellers and
Barbara Dudley, two credentialed
environmentalists, lamely took revenge on Adam
Werbach for his support of Wal-Mart's greening
efforts. Nearly two years ago, Adam spoke out in
the "Death of Environmentalism" controversy,
daring to criticize the movement for its myopia
and ineffectiveness. Unable to argue that the
movement actually was effective, Sellers and
Dudley finally found grounds on which they felt
they could challenge Werbach.

Then, in his "Centrism is for Suckers" column in
the New York Times on August 4, the otherwise
respectable Paul Krugman slugged the Sierra Club
for its Chafee endorsement. Republican moderates
like Chafee have repeatedly put their fingers in
the levees to slow the
Bush/Cheney/Inhofe/DeLay/Pombo flood of
environmental destruction. Krugman's criticism is
counterproductive.

Spend Your $. 02
Discuss this story in our blog, Gristmill. http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/8/10/12426/4827

Sellers, Dudley, and Krugman need to get real. If
environmentalists want to win, we need to avoid
being ineffective, effete purists unable to
discern between real progress, bad policies, and
destructive demagoguery.

We all know that America has the financial and
technical wherewithal to stop global warming. We
can end our addiction to oil and get back on the
path to saving our natural legacy. It is,
however, going to take more time and be more
difficult if progressives become reactionary and
inhibit progress instead of supporting it.

Moan and groan if you want. We're heading over to
Wal-Mart.

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Lisa Renstrom is president of the Sierra Club.
Bob Perkowitz is president of ecoAmerica, a
trustee of The Sierra Club Foundation and of
Environmental Defense, and a partner at VivaTerra LLC.