The Green Reformation

By | May 10, 2005
2 Comments

In the current issue of MIT’s Technology Review, Stewart Brand goes on record with a rather startling prediction:

Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbani­zation, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.

I certainly hope Brand is right about the coming shift. Clearly, the environmental movement is on the wrong side of history with each of these issues. No matter how we play with the numbers, it’s now undeniable that the population explosion has ended, with some population numbers gaining momentum in the opposite direction. Urbanization is good for the environment because it centralizes populations, creating more room for species-preserving habitat. Genetically engineered crops produce better yields and make fewer demands on natural resources. Unlike the fossil fuels we currently use to power our energy grid, nuclear power does not pollute the air or water. Moreover, nuclear power provides the most plausible scenario for enabling the eventual use of hydrogen as a fuel for cars.

So it would seem that logic alone dictates that the environmental movement make these changes. But according to Brand, logic is only part of the equation:

Reversals of this sort have occurred before. Wildfire went from universal menace in mid-20th century to honored natural force and forestry tool now, from “Only you can prevent forest fires!” to let-burn policies and prescribed fires for understory management. The structure of such reversals reveals a hidden strength in the environmental movement and explains why it is likely to keep on growing in influence from decade to decade and perhaps century to century.

The success of the environmental movement is driven by two powerful forces—romanticism and science—that are often in opposition. The romantics identify with natural systems; the scientists study natural systems. The romantics are moralistic, rebellious against the perceived dominant power, and combative against any who appear to stray from the true path. They hate to admit mistakes or change direction. The scientists are ethicalistic, rebellious against any perceived dominant paradigm, and combative against each other. For them, admitting mistakes is what science is.

I finally got around to seeing Luther a couple of weeks ago. The film presents a similar dichotomy to the one Brand describes, with the scholarly Luther challenging the dominant paradigm of the dogmatic church hierarchy. The movie doesn’t have a lot of time to spend on the counter-reformation which eventually ocurred, wherein the Catholic church cleaned up its own act on many of the isssues which had initially led Luther to rebel. But I think what Brand is describing, 10 years down the road, is a counter-reformation within the environmental movement.

Before there can be a counter-reformation, however, won’t there first have to be a protestant reformation? Won’t some of these scholarly, ethicalistic scientists have to break with Rome over the central issue of authority?

No, not the papacy.

I was thinking more like global warming.

In his article, I note that Brand does not challenge the received wisdom concerning global warming in any way. In fact, his major argument for nuclear power is the benefit it will provide in combating global warming.

But then again, Luther dedicated his first book on papal indulgences to the pope himself. The story is just beginning.

  • Karl Hallowell

    Excellent story. I was about to about to proclaim that the fluidity of change in environmentalism was one way that modern society is better than the old. But I realized that in the early days of Christianity, it too experienced this sort of challenge and change. In other words, I think we’re still in the formative years of environmentalism. Things like the “Precaution Principle” are potential bureaucratic elements, but there is nothing currently in environmentalism like the corruption or bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic Church of the time of Luther.

  • http://beyondwords.typepad.com/beyond_words/ Kathy

    My bipolar political affective disorder is showing again. The extremist environmentalists overlook the benefits of the modern world that affords them the affluence required to have the time and energy to promote their cause. Few of them would flourish in the kind of world they’d like to create. On the other hand, there are real environmental consequences to modern life that we shouldn’t gloss over. I don’t hope for middle ground, but for an informed, intentional approach that makes the best use of resources.

    Urbanization might make room for habitat, but not if it is devoted to monoculture crops. I live in Iowa, home of beans and corn. And corn and beans. And dying small farming communities that are as impoverished as inner cities. The only livelihood seems to be methamphetamine production these days. I know it’s romantic to think that the days of small family farms will ever return — the demand of the urban areas has created a market for large, corporate farms. It’s a painful transition and I find myself wondering how society can be proactive. Any ideas?