Explaining Environmentalism

In Search of a New Social Movement

Philip W. Sutton

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351765237
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000: The author examines those current theories which purport to explain the emergence and character of 'new' social movements in the 'advanced' industrial societies since the 1960s. In particular, it sets out to test the efficacy of these explanations in relation to the history of the environmental movement in Britain. The book breaks new ground in bringing together both short-term and the more historically orientated long-term explanations into a single volume, thus providing an invaluable resource for students of social movements. Its critical exposition of major theories also points to the need for a more developmental approach which seeks to connect old and new movement forms, thus allowing for a more balanced evaluation of the potential of the environmental movement to bring about significant social change.

1 Environmentalism and Radical Ecology

Introduction: The Basic Divide

In the literature on varieties of environmental or Green thought, a basic distinction exists between ‘reformist’ and ‘radical’ approaches to the defence of the natural world from human interference. Unfortunately there is no consensus on the use of terms in this literature, so that whilst some writers use ‘environmentalism’ to describe a managerial reformist approach to the conservation of nature, others use the same term to refer to radical ecology or ‘Green’ politics which rejects reformism, arguing for major transformations in the Western way of life.

The basic dichotomy goes back to Arne Naess’s (1973) use of the distinction between ‘shallow’ and ‘deep’ ecology as philosophical approaches to society/nature relations, but since then a range of other terms have entered the discourse. Andrew Dobson (1990), uses ‘green’ (reformist) and ‘Green’ (capital G) (radical), Eckersley (1992) defines ‘ecologism’ (radical) in contrast to several other forms such as ‘conservationism’ (reformist), while Jonathon Porritt makes a distinction between ‘light’ (reformist) and ‘dark’ (radical) Greens (1984). What all the above writers are attempting to do is to show that the earlier ideas and practices of nature conservation, preservationism, and arguments for public access to natural areas only produced strictly limited analyses of the human/nature relationship, and do not call for urgent action and social change, whilst the newer Green, ecological perspective goes beyond these, to demonstrate that solving contemporary environmental problems will require a radical restructuring of the ways of life currently enjoyed in modern societies. It is this political message which seems to set ‘ecologism’ apart from ‘environmentalism.’

Throughout this study I will characterise the basic distinction between reformist and radical approaches as that between ‘environmentalism’ and ‘radical ecology’ respectively, though for grammatical purposes I will sometimes refer to the latter as ‘Green’. Part of my argument is that the two approaches are distinct enough to justify the separation, but also because the historical development of reform environmentalism and radical ecology are substantially divergent. What Dobson calls ‘ecologism’ and Eckersley calls ‘ecocentrism’ do, I believe, ask questions of existing political ideologies and worldviews respectively, but these questions are not wholly new ones. The kinds of questions asked by radical ecology, and many of the answers offered have a familiar ring, but what seems to have changed is the context in which these questions are raised. First though, we must establish the terms of the discussion.

Environmentalism

The term ‘environmentalism’ is often used in Green circles, to describe an earlier form of nature concern which is now superseded by a deeper, ‘ecocentric’ analysis of the relationship between human societies and the natural world. As I use the term in this study, environmentalism refers to those approaches to society/nature relations which emphasise the benefits to human beings of natural objects, and to attempts to rectify problems of environmental damage and pollution through technological means. For environmentalists, interest in and contact with the natural world are seen as part of an enlightened view of human well-being. Humans can benefit in several ways from this interest. Nature study offers pleasures of aesthetic or scientific kinds, leisure pursuits can help humans to lead healthier lives, society can benefit from the preservation of endangered species as this maintains genetic diversity and can be useful in developing new medical treatments (an argument often advanced in support of protecting tropical rainforests), and so on. This perspective is human-welfarist in so far as its main arguments rest on the value of nature conservation for society and where no benefit can be gained for human society, then environmentalist arguments against scientific and industrial development fail, particularly if that development brings other benefits such as employment opportunities, housing and increased convenience.

Environmentalism is also used here to cover all those organisations which are rooted in an environmentalist perspective. For example, the National Trust, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (R.S.P.B.) and the Woodland Trust argue in favour of keeping some areas of nature free from industrial and urban development and have used a number of strategies to achieve this goal, from public education and recruiting supporters to buying tracts of land which they manage and maintain themselves. In their own terms these efforts have had some successes, but for Greens these efforts do not go far enough, as they fail to address the root causes of ecological damage and hence do not call for significant social changes.

Reform environmentalist approaches are sometimes accused of adopting a managerial stance towards the natural world, and one which is ultimately self-defeating. Almost all conservation, preservation and amenity organisations fall into this category, as they tend to argue for and are involved in managing nature reserves, areas of outstanding natural beauty, public access areas and buildings of historical value and interest.¹ Environmental organisations do these things largely for human-centred reasons. For example, one aspect of the work of the R.S.P.B., is that it owns nature reserves which it manages ostensibly for the benefit of birdlife, but also for its own members who have access to these reserves for observation. In this way, environmentalism argues for nature preservation and conservation as part of the creation and maintenance of a high quality of life for humans.

Radical ecologists might argue that this strategy may indeed protect some wildlife in the short term, but the establishment of green ‘oases’ does nothing to prevent the large-scale destruction of nature by commercial and industrial practices all over the planet, which will make localised environmentalist efforts largely irrelevant. Further, some eco-radicals argue that the very idea of human beings being able to ‘manage’ naturally occurring ecosystems in their own interests is a clear indication of modern human hubris and Western ‘Enlightenment’ thinking, itself one of the root causes of global environmental damage revealed by the recent evidence on global ecological damage. In this sense, the destructive modern attitudes towards the natural world are reproduced within reformist organisations, whose very existence then tends to militate against the development of a more ‘ecocentric’ perspective. As Evernden (1985: 10) notes, enlightened self-interest is not an adequate basis for nature politics because ‘… environmentalists have ensured their own failure whenever self-interest can be perceived as lying elsewhere’. An example of this would be a more short-term materialistic adherence to the benefits of economic growth as being more conducive to ‘self-interest’. In this way, radical ecology has come to define itself not only in opposition to further industrial modernisation, but also in opposition to more established forms of managerial environmentalism.

Further than this though, the analysis of modern societies offered by radical ecology is claimed to go much ‘deeper’ than that of environmentalism, to penetrate to the causes of ecological damage, and thus it is said to contain, ‘all the truths of the shallower view, plus some additional ones as well’ (Goodin 1992: 43), and hence to go beyond ‘mere’ environmentalism. It is argued that the emergence of a radical ecological perspective could lead to the radicalisation of reformist environmental organisations and the creation of a mass movement pursuing the transformation of the destructive society/nature relationship currently embodied in modern culture. It is worth remembering though, that the real reforms achieved by the early environmental groups have come to be largely taken for granted by those which followed, and in this sense the descriptive chronological contrast between ‘reformists’ and ‘radicals’, though useful in some respects, tends also to act as a barrier to seeing this contrast against the backdrop of the longer-term development of British environmentalism. This long-term development is a major theme running throughout this study.

Radical Ecology

Trying adequately to characterise the radical ecological perspective is notoriously difficult, due to the variety of approaches which fall within this general ‘worldview’. In attempting to differentiate radical ecology from environmentalism I do not want to be drawn into a protracted discussion about this internal variety.² Here I am attempting to provide a guide to the fundamental differences of approach of the two perspectives and their respective solutions to environmental problems in order to show why some researchers have come to see the contemporary ecological movement as ‘new.’

As a working definition I use the term ‘radical ecology’ to refer to those approaches which attempt to move away from a human-centred concern for nature protection towards an ecocentric perspective which emphasises the interrelatedness of living things (including humans) in ecosystems. By ecocentric I mean ‘a mode of thought which regards humans as subject to ecological and systems laws’ (Pepper 1996: 329). More than this though, ecocentrics argue that non-human nature is worthy of protection and defence in its own right, without recourse to arguments about the necessity for this protection to be related to human survival and well-being. As Goodin (1992: 8) has observed, ‘… it is clear that nature is now taken to have an independent role in the creation of value. The value of nature is no longer regarded as wholly reducible to its value to God or to humanity. And it is this insight that drives, most powerfully, the current wave of environmental concern’. In this sense, radical ecology wants to shift the burden of proof on to those who would interfere with natural systems and intervene in areas of ‘wild’ nature in the name of development, to demonstrate why it is justifiable to destroy valuable ecosystems and disrupt natural processes. In the absence of such justifications, radical ecologists argue that the natural world should be maintained intact.

In opposition to environmentalism, radical ecology approaches generally argue that ecological problems cannot be solved within the present socioeconomic, political framework, which usually means more technological fixes such as recycling plants, catalytic converters and so on. Whilst these may provide short-term solutions, they also require industrial production themselves and therefore can only add to long-term global ecological problems caused by industrial development, as well as propagating the notion that no radical social change is required. In addition, radical ecology approaches, despite using the findings of scientific research to substantiate their calls for urgent action, are critical of the contribution of classical scientific thinking to an anthropocentric worldview which legitimises ecological damage in the interests of progress and development. There are many statements of faith which could be used to illustrate their point here. For example, Marx’s thesis (cited in Bottomore and Rubel 1990: 68) that ‘… mankind always sets itself only such problems as it can solve; since, on closer examination, it will always be found that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation’. One of the more recent statements in this vein is the following from P.B. and J.S. Medawar (1972: 15):

We believe that technological remedies can be found for evils of technological origin and are prepared to marvel at people who think otherwise. One had hoped that a journey to the far side of the moon had convinced everyone that any accomplishment which is not at odds with the laws of physics is within human capability.³

This represents a clear ‘technocentric’ orientation (O’Riordan 1981) against which many radical ecologists are reacting. Instead they propose a return to simpler lifestyles, usually in decentralised communities, lower levels of consumption in the Western nation-states and the reorganisation of highly industrialised societies and cultures in favour of ecologically benign (or ‘soft’) technologies and anti-materialist attitudes which advocate ‘treading softly on the Earth’. So, although managerial environmentalist measures may receive some support from radical ecologists, they will tend to be perceived by the latter as not going far enough in their analysis of the causes of ecological degradation, and therefore to understate the size of the problem hence avoiding any discussion of necessary social changes. ‘If it [Green politics] stops at mere reforms in conservation and pollution control, then it will merely be operating as a leaky safety valve for the existing systems of exploitative politics’ (Ecology Party 1983: 34).

Radical ecology therefore sees itself as going beyond the rather narrow confines of the environmentalist approach and moving nature politics in the direction of a thoroughgoing critique of modernity itself, particularly in so far as this is based on criticisms of the rationalistic Enlightenment ‘project’ and ‘classical’ methods of scientific inquiry. Many radical ecologists trace the origins of the contemporary ‘ecological crisis’ back to the advent of dualistic modes of thinking and a mechanistic worldview introduced via the sixteenth and seventeenth century scientific revolution.⁴ Fritjof Capra (1983: 38) summarises why this is so.

The medieval outlook changed radically in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The notion of an organic, living, and spiritual universe was replaced by that of the world as a machine, and the world-machine became the dominant metaphor of the modern era. This development was brought about by revolutionary changes in physics and astronomy, culminating in the achievements of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.

By locating one of the sources of destructive modern attitudes to nature in the scientific ‘worldview’, radical ecologists differ from environmentalists who will typically draw on expert scientific research to support their arguments for nature preservation. It should be noted though that radical ecologists are much more impressed by recent developments in theoretical physics, particularly the emergence of ‘chaos theory’ and quantum (subatomic) physics which appear to be more amenable to an ‘ecological’ reading of their implications (as in, Prigogine and Stengers 1985). Capra (1975: 71) argues for example that, ‘Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe …’ which supports the radical ecological focus on interrelatedness.⁵ In this way the links which Toulmin (1982) finds between the ‘new’ physics and postmodernism can be extended to radical ecology, as part of the postmodernist undermining of the certainties and metanarratives of modernity (Lyotard 1984). Generally, I will be arguing against this kind of interpretation, which seems to ignore modernity’s ‘dualistic’ character (Eder 1993 and Chapter 3 this volume).

Table 1.1 Shallow versus deep ecological perspectives

Shallow Ecology	Deep Ecology
Natural diversity is a valuable resource for us.	Natural diversity has its own (intrinsic) value.
It is nonsense to talk about as value except as value for mankind.	Equating value with value for humans reveals a racial prejudice.
Plant species should be saved because of their value as genetic reserves for human agriculture and medicine.	Plant species should be saved because of their intrinsic value.
Pollution should be decreased if it threatens economic growth.	Decrease of pollution has priority over economic growth.
Developing nations’ population growth threatens ecological equilibrium.	World population at the present level threatens ecosystems but the population and behaviour of industrial states more than any others. Human population is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Environmentalism and Radical Ecology
• 2 Theories of Old and New Social Movements
• 3 The Rise of Environmentalism and Radical Ecology
• 4 The Origins of Organised Environmentalism
• 5 Twentieth Century Environmentalism
• 6 Industrialisation and Nature Politics
• 7 Towards a Socio-Historical Explanation of British Environmentalism
• Bibliography
• Index