The environmental movement is on life support. Some would say it is already dead. Even though climate change and Al Gore are fast becoming the conversation du jour around the American dinner table, it also happens to be the rallying cry for do-gooder conservationists and corporations alike.
Call it the eco-economy. Virtually all major corporations now claim they are going “green.” Toyota dealerships cannot keep the hybrid Prius in stock. Apple, after heavy lobbying from Greenpeace and others, declares they are going to make their computers environmentally friendly. Genetically modified corn, which produces ethanol fuel, is being hawked by Monsanto as an alternative to petroleum based gasoline. Ethanol advocates are calling their program “Fuels for Profit,” while they sip McDonald’s organic coffee. The environmental movement has been corporatized.
Big green groups are not helping the situation. Their hands are tied by both the large foundations that pay their rent and the Democratic Party to which they are attached at the hip. They long ago gave up on challenging the system. Most groups today are little more than direct mailing outfits who have embraced a sordid neoliberal approach to saving the natural world. The true causes of planetary destruction are never mentioned. Industrial capitalism is not the problem, individuals are. Not the government’s inability to enforce its weak regulations. Not big oil companies, or coal fired plants. These neoliberal groups argue ordinary people are to blame for the impending environmental catastrophe, not those who profit from the Earth’s destruction.
Meanwhile, on the ground, grassroots environmentalists engaging in arson as a response to unfettered sprawl and our car-addicted culture are dubbed terrorists by the federal government. Despite their extreme and counter-productive methods, the cases are quite informative. In our post-9/11 world, young eco-radicals are viewed by the FBI and corporations as if they are as dangerous as bin Laden. All activists, no matter their cause, should take heed. It is the first step in cracking down on radical activism.
Torching SUVs in the middle of the night, unfortunately, will not bring about any massive radical change, except, perhaps, in our “anti-terrorism” legislation. There are militant direct actions that are prevailing, however, from Paul Watson’s crusade to protect the wild creatures of the sea, to the environmentalists who stake out in trees for weeks at a time, to the grandmothers who chain themselves to logging trucks, despite the dangers.
Such actions, coupled with the organization of the working class, could help steer the environmental movement in the right direction. The philosophy of the great wilderness advocate Bob Marshall may prove to be quite prescient in the age of foundation driven conservationism. Marshall believed wilderness was for the regular folks. He believed wilderness was a “minority right” and argued that elitism inside the movement would be inherently corrupt. He’s right. The burdens of a corporatized society are great, not only for our forests and rivers, but to the workers who are consistently exploited and poisoned for profit.
Marshall believed the radical trade unions and socialized forestry was one answer to countering the destruction of the wild places he loved so much. Now is the time to once again embrace such an environmental ethic. Wilderness is for all to enjoy. It is not ours to exploit. The salmon and grizzly bears deserve better.
Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of “Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature” and Grand “Theft Pentagon.” His newest book is “End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate,” co-written with Alexander Cockburn.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of “Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush” (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming “Red State Rebels,” to be published by AK Press in March 2008.
