Toward a Self-Critical Environmentalism

Author(s): Martin W. Lewis

Source: Politics and the Life Sciences, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Sep., 1999), pp. 229-231
Published by: Association for Politics and the Life Sciences
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4236508
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 Symposium:Is HumanityDestined to Self-Destruct?

we will at Gieryn, T. (1999). Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibilityon the

justice, then even if the future proves catastrophic,
least have learned to meet it humanely.
References
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Caldwell, L.K. (1999). 'Is Humanity Destined to Self-Destruct?" Poli-
tics and The Life Sciences 18:3-14.
Cronon, W. (1995). Uncommon Ground:Rethinking the Human Place
in Nature. New York:Norton.
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Knopf.

Toward a Self-Critical Environmentalism

Martin W. Lewis Duke University, USA

Keith Caldwell's warning?that humanity remarkably obdurate to evidence that contradicts its favorite
must face the limits posed by "obdurate reality" if it is assumptions. In the spirit of constructive debate, I will there-
Lynton to avoid an ecological Armageddon?is a familiar if fore limit my comments to these points of dissension.
not hackneyed feature of environmental discourse. Yet it re- Environmentalism comes in many variants, ranging from
tains its urgency. The utter failure of the U.S. government to the atavistic "return to the Pleistocene" school to the
confront the perils of global climate change, and the seeming hard-nosed camp of the environmental economists.
inability of the American public even to contemplate wean- Caldwell's position falls somewhere in the middle, near the
ing our society from fossil fuel addiction, demonstrate that "mainstream" of green philosophy. Yet this mainstream, de-
this message has not been broadly absorbed. Caldwell de- spite its measured tones and appeals to science and reason,
serves thanks for keeping the alarm bells ringing. remains hobbled by several attitudes that it shares with the
But despite the salience of Caldwell's message, a number strident eco-radical fringe. In particular, it discredits itself
of his specific arguments are poorly founded. His overall by remaining beholden to Arcadian sentimentalism and
position, moreover, is weakened by a seeming unwillingness apocalyptic prophesy, both of which subtly inform "Is Hu-
to grapple with the criticisms of green political philosophy manity Destined to Self-Destruct?"
that have emerged over the past 20 years. If these criticisms
have merit, then at least some of the blame for the public's
failure to understand ecological limits lie within environ- Arcadian Sentimentalism
mentalism itself?within a discourse that has proven
The hallmark of Arcadian sentimentalism is the notion that
humanity has fallen from ecological grace; that in pre-
Martin W. Lewis is Associate Research Professor of Geography in some versions, pre-scientific or even
technological (or,
and Director of the Program in Comparative Area Studies at Duke
pre-agricultural) times people lived as one with the natural
University. He has conducted extensive research on human-envi-
ronmental relations in Southeast Asia, and is author of Wagering the world. Only by regaining the mind-set of this lost world?if
Land: Ritual, Capital, and Environmental Degradation in the Cor- not the actual lifeways associated with it?can we save the
dillera of Northern Luzon (University of California Press, 1992). He earth and redeem our species.
has also worked on the politics and philosophy of modem environ- Caldwell does not wholly endorse the Arcadian view,
mentalism, writing Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique that societies
admitting nontechnological occasionally
of Radical Environmentalism (Duke University Press, 1992) and
"undermined their ecological support base" ( 1993:3). Yet he
coediting (with Paul Gross and Norman Levitt) The Flight from Sci-
ence and Reason (New York Academy of Sciences, 1996). More re- regards such disasters as strictly "localized," contending
cently he has been writing on the theoretical foundation of global that humanity once maintained an "ancient covenant with
geography, coauthoring (with Karen Wigen) The Myth of Conti- nature" (1993:3). The evidence supporting this view, how-
nents: A Critique of Metageography (University of California
ever, is thin. A consensus is emerging that Homo sapiens
Press) in 1997. Correspondence to: Department of Comparative
Area Studies, Box 90405, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, was at least partly responsible for the global ecological holo-
USA (E-mail: mlewis@duke.edu). caust of Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions. In the case of

Politics and the Life Sciences September 1999 229

Symposium:Is HumanityDestined to Self-Destruct?
Madagascar and New Zealand, the evidence is over-
whelming that the first human settlers wrought devasta-
tion (Martin and Klein, 1984; Flannery, 1995; Diamond,
1997). The extinctions that they caused (like those that
modern humanity is now causing) did not result in a cas-
cading ecological meltdown?nature is far too resilient
for that. But it was nonetheless a crime against nature. The
guilt of despoliation has been on our collective hands for
millennia.
The notion of an "ancient covenant" anachronistically
evaluates nontechnological peoples not on their own terms
but rather on ours (Krech, 1999). Scholars who have care-
fully examined the evidence have shown that that some non-
industrial peoples not only wasted natural resources, but
were at times almost pathologically destructive (Edgerton,
1992; Krech, 1999; Whelan, 1999). If the global environ-
ment remained relatively stable, it was because human num-
bers were few and technologies limited?not because people
had any superior ecological sensibilities, much less an an-
cient covenant.
Arcadian sentiments are also evident in Caldwell's views
on urbanism. His brief against large cities lies largely in the
realm of human psychology; "pathological togetherness,"
he contends, may well lead to "sociopsychological dysfunc-
tion and violent crime" (1999:9). No evidence is offered to
show that large human agglomerations have any deleterious
effects on the global environment. Nor are such anti-urban
arguments easily made. When people are concentrated in
mega-cities, more land is made available for natural habitat.
Equally significant, the ecological cost of transporting peo-
ple and goods decreases as density increases (Lewis, 1992).
Any form of decentralization?whether suburban sprawl,
exurban creep, or rural intensification?in short, takes a sub-
stantial environmental toll. Residents of large metropolitan
areas in the United States, moreover, are far more willing to
vote for environmental protection than are people in rural ar-
eas (Lewis, 1992). Nor does life in large cities necessarily
cause psychological damage. Murder rates in North
Carolina's small cities, such as Fayetteville and Rocky
Mount, are far higher than those of such massive metropoli-
tan areas as Boston or San Francisco (Boyer and Savageau,
1997:266-73); violent crime rates in the world's largest
megalopolis?Japan's Tokaido corridor?are a fraction of
those found in the rural U.S. South.
Many environmentalists do not feel comfortable in the
artificial environments of huge cities. But personal predilec-
tions should not cloud careful analysis. Decentralization
consumes habitat and?unless we are to return to
autarky?demands massive infusions of energy. I see no
reason to advocate it.
Apocalyptic Prophesy
As Matthew Buttsworth (1999) has brilliantly shown, green
philosophy is thoroughly steeped in an ancient apocalyptic
230
tradition that can ultimately be traced back to
Zoroastrianism. Apocalyptic visionaries warn that total de-
struction looms, but also that it may be averted?and a new
promised age realized?if society recants and mends its
ways. Prophets of eco-apocalypse may valuably alert us to
real perils, but they also risk discrediting environmentalism
by generating panic over insignificant issues. There is a dan-
ger, in other words, in "crying wolf."
Caldwell does question eco-apocalypticism, but only in a
trivial manner. Predictions of impending famine made in the
1960s, he claims, may have erred by giving "faulty time-
tables" (1999:5), but were nonetheless, by implication, sub-
stantially correct. Elsewhere he falls into the apocalyptic
mode himself, contending, for example, that "the release of
synthetic chemicals may threaten ... survival" (1999:8).
Synthetic chemicals no doubt pose serious environmental
problems, but to contend that they possibly threaten survival
(of humanity? of life itself?) is not justifiable. Overall, the
evidence remains entirely mixed. The National Research
Council has recently concluded that no proof exists for the
thesis, advocated in Our Stolen Future, that reproduction is
now threatened by synthetic chemicals (Easterbrook, 1999).
Debates over the mere existence of chemically imposed "en-
vironmental illness" fill volumes and are far from decided
(compare Miller and Ashford, 1997 with Barrett and Gotts,
1998). Environmental scare campaigns against alar on
apples and electromagnetic fields were almost certainly mis-
guided. By jumping prematurely to dire conclusions when
no scientific consensus exists risks undermining the envi-
ronmental message. It allows anti-environmentalists to ef-
fectively discount genuine threats.
Nowhere have eco-apocalyptic warnings been so over-
blown as on the issue of human population. Basic food stocks
are actually more plentiful now than they were 40 years ago,
as is reflected in the low international price of grain. Hundreds
of millions of people remain hungry, of course, but such want
derives from political and economic factors, not a straining at
the margins of global carrying capacity (Sen, 1984; see also
Cohen, 1995). Humanity, moreover, is simply not showing
the "irreversible explosive growth" (1999:9) that Caldwell
sees. The global fertility rate has actually declined so quickly
that demographers at the UN Population Division have had to
revise their forecasts downwards three times in the past six
years ("Survey of the 20th Century":6). Demographic stabili-
zation is now in sight.
But this is not to suggest that population growth is not a
legitimate environmental concern. Several densely popu-
lated countries, such as Pakistan, still have high fertility
rates and may face demographic-ecological crises. More im-
portant, the expected addition of another four billion persons
will necessarily divert primary productivity from natural to
human communities, thereby vastly diminishing nature.
This is reason enough to do everything possible to hasten the
reduction of fertility. Lester Brown's recommendations on
this score are entirely on target (Brown, Halweil, and
Gardner, 1999); his unsubstantiated, apocalyptic warnings
Politics and the Life Sciences September 1999

of impending food shortages, generated by such processes as
China's economic growth (Brown, 1995), only cloud the is-
sue (see Paarlberg, 1996).
Nor have the dire warnings about the "consequences of
exponential growth of the human economy" been "authenti-
cated" ( 1999:7). An ever-expanding economy would clearly
be an environmental impossibility if GNP were measured on
the basis of mass and energy consumed. But the size of the
economy is actually defined on the basis of the total value of
goods and services produced. If the information revolution
shows us anything, it is that through miniaturization,
dematerialization, and increasing efficiency, economic growth
can continue without necessarily channeling ever more natural
resources into the human economy. The incessant writing of
ever more code does not significantly diminish nature.
Again, this does not mean that economic expansion is no
cause for environmental concern. Subsidies, habits, and the
of most economists and politicians to fully
unwillingness
factor in negative environmental externalities ensure contin-
ued devastation. Ironically, the computer revolution has ac-
tually resulted in a massive increase in the use of paper. But
it need not; if paper were subject to appropriate green taxes,
use would plummet. Eliminating newspapers, junk-
mailings, and all the flotsam of trash paper with which we
surround ourselves would pay huge environmental divi-
dends at a minimal economic cost.
The steady-state economy envisioned by green thinkers
may be an eventual necessity, as it is difficult to imagine how
anything can expand forever. But economic stabilization is an
issue for generations far into the future. At the present, only a
briskly expanding economy?both for the United States and
the world as a whole?can alleviate poverty and generate the
capital required for the eventual creation of a post-fossil fuel
system (on the mutuality of economic growth and environ-
mental protection, see Hajer, 1995). Equally important, only
under conditions of "prosperity" will the public be willing to
pay the bill for enhanced environmental protection. A
steady-state economy, if implemented at the present, could
prove to be an ecological disaster.
Can Minds
Adapt?
Caldwell ultimately argues that the underdeveloped capac-
ity of the human mind" ( 1999:12) prevents us from realizing
the severity of the impending ecological calamity, further
contending that if only we could systematically apply reason
( 1999:11 ), we would see the need for radical change. There is
much to be said for this position. Yet I would insist that rea-
son and science can cut both ways (see Gross, Levitt, and
Lewis, 1996), demonstrating that certain perceived environ-
mental hazards are actually not significant. Much evidence
suggests that people systematically minimize risks derived
from their own conscious choices, while correspondingly ex-
aggerating those?such as environmental cancer
threats?that are imposed by impersonal forces (Wildavsky,
Politics and the Life Sciences September 1999
Symposium:Is HumanityDestined to Self-Destruct?
1995; Margolis, 1997; Foreman, 1998; Lichter and Rothman,
1999). The systematic application of reason does bolster the
central thesis of environmentalism, but it also undercuts
many specific green arguments.
Caldwell's basic message is essentially unchanged from
the one I received a quarter century ago as an undergraduate
in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of
California, Santa Cruz. It remains a powerful warning about
the hubris of modern humanity. But the kind of environmen-
talism that it exemplifies will fail to garner widespread pubic
support if it cannot adapt?if it proves unwilling to engage
with the constructive criticisms that have been leveled
against the green orthodoxy over the past 20 years.
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