FW: [Envlist] Re: Mark Lynas
Janet Alty
years, always prefaced by the statement that I'm proud I've never called
myself an "environmentalist". Mobbsey, as ever hits it on the head...
Best to all survivors out there.
XX Janet
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From: Paul Mobbs <mob...@gn.apc.org>
Organization: Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
Reply-To: ENVlist <Env...@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2011 13:09:49 +0100
To: <climate...@foe.co.uk>
Cc: ENVlist <Env...@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [Envlist] Re: Mark Lynas
On Wednesday, July 06, 2011 01:04:51 am Joseph Nicholas wrote:
> The more I read about Marl Lynas's "conversion" (there's really no other
> way to put it) from environmentalist to environmental apologist for
> business (does anyone remember Pete Wilkinson, who made a similar
> transition from Greenpeace to BNFL adviser in the late 1980s/early
> 1990s?), the more I convince myself that he's an agent provocateur, sent
> into the environmental movement to provoke it into squabbling amongst
> itself and thus turn it away from addressing the important issues of the
> moment.
Let's also not forget Simon Festing, who used to work for FoE (I certainly
had
a few "disagreements" with him on planning/pollution), who now defends
animal
testing on behalf of the drug and chemical lobbies.
Also, if you've got some money that you really need to waste, I recommend
disposal via the purchase of Patrick Moore's book, 'Confessions of a
Greenpeace Drop-out'. Or, if you want to do the same whilst feeling queasy,
get Stewart Brand's 'Whole Earth Discipline'.
But I think we're missing an important point here...
I was at an interesting set of presentations at Parliament last night (very
few MPs present though). Via voice link from Australia Graham Turner, of the
Aussie government science agency CSIRO, presented his evidence to show that
not only was the 'Limits to Growth' hypothesis still conforming to present
resource and pollution trends, but that there is no "technofix" to this
problem
-- we have to accept that we must reduce lifestyle consumption back to the
level of the 1950s. The other speaker, a big-wig in the resource finance
industry, demonstrated how the political realties of recent resource
shortages
were leading to the break-down of globalisation as the global free market
was
replaced with geopolitical bi-lateral deals; and that ultimately the present
growth-oritented economic process would have to be radically overhalled
because it can't function within such an imperfect market with spiralling
prices. (If you've been to any of my presentations, that a pretty good
correlation to what I've been saying for a while.)
However, coming back to Lynas, this whole reality of "ecological collpase"
is
no longer reflected at all within mainstream environmentalism -- which is
enfatuated with economic theories and technofix solutions to present (mostly
carbon-based) ecological trends. The cost of becoming "a player" in the
1990s
was that environmentalism rejected, even repudiated, the incisive critique
of
modernity that the movement of the 1970s and 80s held. Environmentalism
today
addresses -- and seeks to reinforce and perpetuate -- consumer trends rather
than seeking a resolution between the material needs of the human species
and
the ecosystem we inhabit. This is where, in my view, the environmental
movement has "lost it" -- despite the evidence to the presicence of that
position, it has rejected its 'deep ecological' roots for an ineffectual
place
at the table of power (alongside so many hundred other lobbies and
corporations who have more money and clout in that environment anyway!).
Largely (although not exclusively) mainstream environmental commentators are
"of the affluent, by the affluent, for the affluent". I thought that point
was
reinforced during questions when some people dragged up quite spurious
questions such as "what about ecological tax reform", and in a discussion
after a person commented that this has to be an "affluent" issue because the
poor people on the estates "don't care". If peole really understood the
truth
of the trends before us, they would understand that not only is their
perceived "comfort" within our affluent society illusory, and temporary --
it's
an obstacle to their own personal development towards a more sustainable
lifestyle (by the way, that's not my unique observation -- similar
observations we made by Gandhi of the liberation movement in India).
One of the discussions I had in Westminter Hall after the meeting was that
the
problem with campaigning on this issue is that we need to develop a wholly
different stype of low resource/low impact (i.e., "poor") lifestyle -- but
there's a conscious block in the way of that process because most of the
people who work at the leading environmental bodies are of the "affluent"
class,
and in fact are paid sums of money which reinforce the entitlements of
affluence
rather than encouraging the development of a staff body who's commitment to
a
low impact lifestyle comes from the fact that they're already doing it
themselves. In evidence of this, I offer FoE's recent job offer for
campaigns
director -- http://www.foe.co.uk/press_for_change/jobs/job_31594.html
...£46,190 for 35 hours a week!!
If FoE wanted to be really radical, it would re-align its own philosophy and
start employing people in a way that reflects the realities of the future,
not
the niceities of the present. If you want a low impact, ecologically
sustainable future then it needs to be delivered by those already living
within such a framework -- so that they can "live" the idea and thus
communicate it more forcefully to the public.
P.
--
.
"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burrough, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')
Paul's book, "Energy Beyond Oil", is out now!
For details see http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/ebo/
Read my 'essay' weblog, "Ecolonomics", at:
http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/ecolonomics/
Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
email - mob...@gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/index.shtml
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