As we say goodbye to 2007, I’ve been thinking about U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the energy bill, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and The Great Debaters—and what they tell us about how the world has changed, and how it hasn’t, in the year gone by.
This has been a watershed year, I’d argue, for the issue of sustainability in business and government. It was only last January that nine major companies, including General Electric, DuPont, Caterpillar and four utilities joined with four big environmental groups to for the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and call for mandatory federal regulations on emissions of greenhouse gases. Last month, Congress passed an energy bill that, while flawed, raises mileage standards for cars and requires much more efficient buildings and appliances. Those two events, both in Washington, can be seen as bookends to a year in which the environment in general and climate change in particular became mainstream concerns of business and government elites. It’s now clear to anyone paying close attention that Congress will in the next year or two enact meaningful climate change legislation. That will be a very big deal, needless to say.
There were other dramatic signs of progress in 2007. Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), represented by its chairman R.K. Pachauri, won the Nobel peace prize for their advocacy on climate change. (Later, Gore joined venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins to work on clean technology solutions to the problem.) The U.S. Supreme Court all but ordered the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. By the end of the year, automakers GM, Ford and Chrysler and oil companies Conoco Phillips and Shell were among those signing onto U.S. CAP. The wind and solar energy industries, meanwhile, are growing fast, attracting investment and, most importantly, continuing to make technology gains. I could go on—about environmental initiatives at the local and state level, about green buildings, about the resistance to coal plants, about Wal-Mart’s impact and the like.
But are we making real progress, as a society, towards sustainability? Progress, of course, always comes in fits and starts. (The headline of this post, Two Steps Forward, is borrowed from my friend Joel Makower’s invaluable blog about sustainable business.) But I think what we are seeing right now in the U.S. (and I’m not qualified to speak about the rest of the world) is a society that’s moving forward and backwards at the same time. To be more specific, I see a yawning disconnect between the progress in the political and business world and business-as-usual in the broader, consumer culture which, in the end, matters as much if not more. Business-as-usual, when it comes to climate change, means things are getting worse as more and more carbon emissions get dumped into the air. That needs to change, soon. Which brings me to Dr. Blackwell and The Great Debaters.
First, though, do you doubt that the consumer behavior lags the elites when it comes to sustainability? If you do, I’d bet you didn’t spend any time at the malls or watching TV this past holiday season. Or realize that, for all the talk about climate change, roughly half the vehicles purchased in 2007 were SUVs and light trucks. Or see that despite the so-called credit crunch, millions of Americans continue to spend more money than they can afford to buy things they probably don’t need. Consider, for example, this shocking Los Angeles Times story about auto financing that, says, among other things that Americans are “slipping into a perpetual cycle of automobile debt,†that 45% of car loans are written for longer than six years, that the average loan is more than $30,000 (!), and that most car loans are made for amounts higher than the car is worth at the time of purchase. I hate to break it to you, friends, but these people aren’t buying Priuses.
Dr. Blackwell was the first woman to receive an M.D. from an American medical school. She did so in 1849, and I know that only because I bought a book about her last week as a birthday present for my nine-year-old niece. Dr. Blackwell wrote this about her experience at Geneva Medical College in upstate New York:
as I walked backwards and forwards to college the ladies stopped to stare at me, as at a curious animal. I afterwards found that I had so shocked Geneva propriety that the theory was fully established either that I was a bad woman, whose designs would gradually become evident, or that, being insane, an outbreak of insanity would soon be apparent.
Amazing, no? Today, in case you were wondering, there are about 235,000 female physicians in the U.S., slightly more than 25% of all doctors, the AMA says.
Last week, too, I saw The Great Debaters, a thoroughly entertaining movie about the debate team from all-black Wiley College that won national acclaim in the 1930s. (They defeated Harvard in the movie, USC in fact.) The students witness a lynching in one scene, which is fictional but could have happened; lynchings were a major civil rights issue during the Depression. One member of the team, James L. Farmer, went on to found the Congress of Racial Equality; he died less than nine years ago, so this isn’t ancient history. We’re still a long way from racial equality in America, of course, but we’re getting there, andfor the first time ever an African-American candidate is being taken seriously as a possible president.
Here’s the thing: Big, difficult social problems can only be solved by big, sweeping, political movements that engage millions of people. Sexism and racism led to the feminist movement and the civil rights movement, thanks to courageous people like Dr. Blackwell and James Farmer. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything comparable, not now and not on the immediate horizon, when it comes to the environment. (Please, if I am missing this story, let me know.) I don’t see anyone effectively challenging the culture of consumption that so dominates American society. I don’t know why the big environmental groups don’t say and do more around consumption issues; perhaps too many of their major donors drive SUVs and own vacation homes. I see a very few people trying – yes, here comes another plug for the Center for a New American Dream – and I continue to hope that religious leaders will step up to address the issue in a louder and more effective way. Churches and synagogues are, as best as I can, the places where conversations can and should unfold about values, about what really matters and, yes, about why buying that Hummer is an anti-social act.
So I’m cheered by what we’ve seen in 2007. But I’m reminded that we can’t expect government or business, for goodness sake, to lead us towards a path of buying, consuming and wasting less.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Marc:
A terrific commentary, thanks. Consumption is arguably the most important environmental sustainability issue we face today. Did you know that not only is consumption high, but that it is rising at a rate that surpasses the growth rate of human population each year? That results in exponential growth, a thoroughly untenanble situation, but where is the focus on this issue in environmental circles? Alas, we live in a world where consumer sovereignty prevails; we scold the producers, but never the consumers, ourselves. Perhaps the best environmental book I’ve read in a long time is “Confronting Consumption,” by Princen et al. It deals with this issue head on. A brilliant piece of work! I highly recommend it.
Regards,
Mark
Excellent article Marc. Great progress this year, but if we think we’re in the home stretch (or even well on the way), we’re missing the forest for the trees.
“I don’t see anyone effectively challenging the culture of consumption that so dominates American society.”
Marc, if plan A for reducing greenhouse gases is changing human nature’s desire to consume, then it is time to move far away from the oceans.
We need only raise the price of hurtful consumption to decrease the hurtful behavior. In that respect I think this was a bad year. The more we view ineffective and misguided policies like CAFE,light bulb regulations, and trade & cap regs as progress, the longer we delay really addressing the solution which is a carbon tax.
The answer is clearly in growing awareness then strengthening one’s conscious behaviors – on a person by person level. That can only happen if we ratchet up the “coolness” factor by more people stepping it up and stepping out.
How can we get a debate on the environment into the presidential race. Be great to see exactly what each candidate knows/would do when elected. I know regulation is not the sole answer but getting more debate and conversation into the nightly news is a must do.
So thanks for your words of inspiration and the push to keep going. If others want to push a public debate by candidates just on environmental issues for US – be happy to help.
Every point above is entirely valid — and entirely inadequate.
The kind of sweeping change required at this stage in the game is so great that the only way, in my view, to accomplish it is to make it very, very clear to the citizenry that what is at stake are the lives of billions of people who will likely perish in a die off toward the middle of this century.
We were warned of the danger of unbridled human population growth by over 1500 scientists in 1993, including most Nobel Laureates alive at the time (http://dieoff.org/page8.htm) and by 58 National Academies of Science in 1994 (http://dieoff.org/page75.htm). Unfortunately, for some odd reason it is considered impolite to suggest that having only one child per couple might help us avoid population collapse.
It’s time to get real with people: the combination of peak oil, climate change and ecological overshoot will lessen our numbers dramatically within our lifetime.
Marc, it’s clear to me that you have a commitment to people and the environment, or you would not be doing what you are doing and taking the care to write it as eloquently as you do. However, if you would like to make a real difference, I believe that you are going to need to start addressing the fundamental issue of population and take the heat from your employers if need be.
It’s not just China and India. The United States is growing at 0.894% per year, or roughly 30 million people every ten years (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html). Do we really want 450 million people in the country in fifty years. Where are we going to put them? A better question is:how are we going to feed them?
-Andre’
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All:
With due respect, I think we’re collectively missing the point here. Population growth is problematic, to be sure. But when you multiply the effects of such growth with an even faster growth of consumption, you get runaway, exponential, unsustainability. The leading edge of the problem is not population growth, it is consumption growth. That is the insidious factor here — the dirty little secret in business. Very un-Fortune-like.
And by the way, since when has the sustainability conversation been confined to environmental issues? Carbon taxes and the like, which I support, do little to alleviate extreme poverty or other sub-standard social conditions in the world. Let’s broaden our horizons, shall we?
Regards,
Mark
Thanks for all your comments. Andre, I don’t know as much as I should about population growth or peak oil but I have faith (and it’s not much more than faith) that new technologies in energy and agriculture will enable the earth to support more people.
Mark, you’re right that sustainability is about more than climate change. Actually, carbon taxes can help alleviate poverty by, for instance, creating credits that spur development in poor countries. I don’t write as much about poverty or development because I think they are largely going to be shaped by political decisions made in the global south–again, not my area of expertise.
Finally, I don’t see how we can escape the issue of consumption and Mark, I agree, that there’s a disconnect between the aims of business and the need to curb consumption.
Marc, I enjoyed your article. In response to your comment about religious leaders stepping up I’m pasting below a commentary that I heard recently. It hits at the heart of many social issues today,even the issue of environmental sustainability.
BreakPoint Commentaries
Marriage & Family
Do It for Mom
By Mark Earley
12/21/2007
Related Audio/Video Downloads
Divorce and the Environment
Note: This commentary was delivered by PFM President Mark Earley.
Is divorce bad for children? The data strongly suggests that it is. There is no shortage of studies that show a correlation between divorce and what social scientists call “adverse outcomes,†such as drug use, teen pregnancy, depression, and other bad things.
Yet, even with the data, many scientists and academics decline to tell people that they should stay married for the sake of children.
If Americans will not stay together for their children’s sake, would they do it to save the planet?
That is the question being asked in the wake of a recent Michigan State study. Researchers there found that divorce “exacts a serious toll on the environment.†How? It boosts “the energy and water consumption of those who used to live together.â€
Why this should be the case is not hard to understand: Divorce turns what used to be one household into two. The efficient use of resources, including money, that comes naturally to families living under the same roof no longer applies. In its place are two of just about everything. The researchers calculated that, as the result of divorce, an additional 38 million rooms had to be heated and lighted.
The impact of this divorce-induced consumption is not trivial, they say. The researchers calculated that if divorced couples had stayed married, the “United States would have saved 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 BILLION gallons of waterâ€â€”and that’s in 2005 alone.
That is approximately as much electricity as American households use in three weeks and nearly as much water as all of American industry uses in an entire year.
Clearly, the study’s authors were right when they said that after blaming “industries for environmental problems,†it is time to look at the impact of households. But if you are expecting environmental groups to emphasize or even mention getting and staying married as a way to “save the planet,†well, you are mistaken.
The head of the Earth Policy Institute told the Washington Post that “shifting to more energy-efficient appliances is the answer, not trying to prevent divorce or trying to make divorce more difficult.†In other words, get divorced if you like—just make sure your new home has an energy-efficient dishwasher and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
No surprise here. Environmentalism, as Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez puts it, increasingly resembles a “religious awakening.†But, like most modern religions, its aim is to make the adherent feel righteous, not to be righteous.
Thus, given the choice between personal fulfillment and “saving the planet,†the choice is easy: The environment joins the kids on the list of those things whose well-being is sacrificed on the altar of our autonomy. Just as our children have to settle for “quality time,†“Mother Earth†will have to be content with energy-efficient appliances and a check to an environmental group. Any real sacrifice is for other people to make.
Of course, that does not change the impact that our choices have on both people and now, it seems, the planet. We can violate the moral order for only so long before the stones themselves begin to cry out.
Today’s BreakPoint Offer
Please give a generous donation today to help Prison Fellowship and BreakPoint continue strong in the new year. Donate online or call 1-877-322-5527. Thank you!
For Further Reading and Information
Roberto Rivera, “Do It for Mom!†The Point, 5 December 2007.
“A Really Inconvenient Truth: Divorce Is Not Green,†Michigan State University press release, 10 December 2007.
Juliet Eilperin, “Divorce Found to Harm the Environment with Higher Energy, Water Use,†Washington Post, 4 December 2007, A02.
Gregory Rodriguez, “Greenness Is Next to Godliness,†Los Angeles Times, 10 December 2007.
Meghan Daum, “Save the World: Stay Married,†Los Angeles Times, 8 December 2007.
See this table showing the “Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000†and this table and the “Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000—Total Water Use.†Also see “End-Use Consumption of Electricity 2001.â€
BreakPoint Commentary No. 071211, “Fruitless Folly: Voluntary Self-Extinction.â€
BreakPoint Commentary No. 071102, “Just Do It: Good Stewardship and Global Warming.â€
Regis Nicoll, “The New World Religion: Environmentalism and the Western World,†BreakPoint Online, 31 January 2005.
Dear Marc:
I guess I can’t let your “faith in technology” (FIT) comment go by without comment, despite my desire to do so. Especially as it is so common in the sustainability debate these days.
Perhaps without knowing it, when you (or others) make the “faith in technology” (FIT) argument, you are putting forward the so-called “weak sustainability” thesis, which is to say that new human-made capital can always substitute for the loss of natural capital. But as Herman Daly (a proponent of strong sustainably like myself) puts it, “one cannot build the same wooden house with half the timber no matter how many saws and carpenters one tries to substitute.”
The FIT argument is self-contradictory, to the extent that it assumes no limits to technology in a world that is otherwise resource-contrained. It really is terribly naiive in that regard. Our technologies are either part of the same world in which we live, or they are not. Technology development is not itself immune to capital depletion, not matter how much you wish it were so.
Thus, sooner or later we must confront the problems of ever-increasing human population, ever-increasing consumption, and ever-decreasing natural capital and human well-being, and abandon the irrational FIT argument that simply does not hold water. FIT simply belongs in the same category as perpetual motion, and the sooner we learn to live without it, the better.
Regards,
Mark
Marc,
You are so right on the issue of consumption. I’m becoming more and more convinced that until we can get consumers to consume less, through shaming, shunning or shining a bright light on pathways to success (thanks for the consistent spotlight on Center for a New American Dream), sustainability will forever be just that, a dream.
In reading the books of John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hitman and The Secret History of the American Empire.) curbing consumption appears as an integral, if not more plausible route to a sustainable, climate-neutral future.
I came across Perkins’ attempt to come correct after 25 years of personal and professional skulduggery, with his DreamChange.org and wanted to see what you knew about it or others attempting to help consumers grasp more fully the damage they (OK, I’m also not without blame) are doing by buying so much crap they don’t need.
And another thought/question…now that corporations are being shamed/shown the way on CSR, sustainable business practices and climate change (Thanks, Joel!), is excessive consumerism the next environmental battleground?
Good to read you again. Keep it up.
Cheers,
Mark Evertz
Portland, OR