What's wrong with environmentalists?

Just over two years ago now, two California activists shook up the environmentalism field a fair amount with an essay entitled "The Death of Environmentalism." (32-page PDF file here; interview with the authors here.) Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus argued basically that American environmentalists have spent the last 30 years trying to re-fight their successful battles of the 1960s and 1970s, as if nothing had changed socially or politically since then. The new news is that they've expanded the essay into a book which will be published shortly.

Meanwhile at the practical-politics level, a prominent Republican pollster and messaging consultant (the guy who coined the phrase "death tax" for the inheritance tax) recently told the online green magazine Grist that green activists have repeatedly "taken a very important issue and undermined their own case for it." Frank Luntz thinks that the fact that steady strong public support for green issues hasn't lately translated into political victories is largely because environmental non-profits behave as professional scolds, communicating a vibe that "anyone who doesn't believe what they believe is not only wrong but evil." At last year's Environmental Grantmakers Association annual meeting I heard this communications consultant make much the same point in a more-friendly, but still pretty blunt, way.

(This stuff is fairly personal for me since a large fraction of who I am intellectually, professionally and even genetically falls in this issue realm.)

Luntz's remarks ring true, indeed remind me of comments I've heard in recent years from friends and family members -- I recall the generally-sympathetic voter who when I mentioned the "smart-growth" groups that my foundation funds, sighed and said, "Oh yes, the people who think we should all be ashamed that we don't live in little boxes." An analogy comes to mind with feminism, where even by the time I graduated college over two decades ago it was striking how many smart young women were completely supportive of feminist positions and goals while rolling their eyes at the attitudes and political hyperbole of actual feminist activists.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus, from my experience, have a strong point with regard to public-policy environmentalism, the heroes who got the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act established back in the day but in recent years have had so much less success in Washington. Their argument holds up much less well with regard to conservationists, who over the last quarter-century have intellectually reinvented their own field and who are now realizing astounding successes.

[P.S. I only just recently noticed that Shellenberger and Nordhaus expanded their diagnosis to modern liberalism as a whole. On that point they get a big "hear, hear" from me but currently I try to save that particular rant for commenting in other people's blogs, for which I'm sure readers here are just as grateful as is my immediate family...]

The evil empire

Joining a foundation staff a year ago turned me from a non-profit specialist into more of a generalist as far as subject area. One subject that keeps coming up at conferences and online within the U.S. non-profit sector now is Wal-Mart.

For instance one project I'm heavily involved in at work is related to the food system, seeking to leverage a big increase in the amount of food that is grown locally and/or organically. Activists in that subject are talking a lot about Wal-Mart these days, with no clear consensus on whether on balance the company's entry into the issue is a good thing or bad. A colleague on that project who is a veteran public-health advocate mentioned one day that those folks are slightly agog over the rapid expansion of Wal-Mart's cheap generic drug offering which, if successful, seems to shake up some of the public-policy debate regarding our health care system. Pro-choice activists scored a big win early this year when the company reversed course on the morning-after pill, particularly since they sell it for far less than other pharmacies do.

On gay-rights websites there is chatter about the company's moves the last couple years on that front, as for example noted here, which is inspiring calls by religious-right groups for boycotts. And thanks to Al Gore's public endorsement of Wal-Mart as a key green change agent (which, as an aside, is my least-favorite new non-profit-sector buzzword), the company's environmental impact is getting more attention. I've seen this news article linked a few times now.

Anti-sprawl activists continue to name Wal-Mart as a poster child for unsustainable economic growth, as do labor unions. This progressive activist's research paper coming to a different conclusion gets linked a bit and the author got a couple of invitations to speak on campuses and debate online, but he's been largely ignored by the mainstream media.

And recently a friend who is heavy into the stock market noted this irony: Wall Street thinks that Wal-Mart, as a business, peaked several years ago. Its stock price hasn't even kept up with inflation for three years now and its sales growth lags well behind that of competitors like Target. As a dominant economic force it may be that the company's historical moment has, for better or worse, passed.