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Sustainability is best served by empirical research, not dogma

I am constitutionally averse to orthodoxies. I don't like it when means become ends in themselves. I don't like it when solutions to problems become holy writ even after the problems are solved. I don't like it when objections to a practice become dogma even when the practice has changed.

In some areas -- religion, for instance -- orthodoxy is built in, and of course many movements become de facto religions as methods harden into unquestioned dogma. (See: early 20th century communism.) But in a secular, democratic society, orthodoxy has no place in public policy. The raison d'etre of a democratic government is to pursue the mutually agreed-upon goals of its citizenry using the methods empirically demonstrated to be effective, within the bounds of the law. This is a bit idealized, of course, but you get what I mean.

Environmentalism has, in many people's eyes, become a religion. I don't think this is quite true, but I certainly know of greens who behave more like priests than scientists, forever condemning any dissent from the straight-and-narrow and excommunicating those who stray. I find this kind of stuff obnoxious -- aesthetically, morally, but most important, pragmatically. The question of how best to protect our natural resources and put human civilization on a sustainable course is empirical, involving a smart synthesis of scientific data, political savvy, and a sense of the possible. To that end, there should bo no verboten topics, no discussion or argument that's out of bounds. No one should feel any "shame" for bringing up sensitive topics.

This was meant to be a prelude to a post, but it's gotten too long, so I'll split it in two. More shortly.

Who’s Minding the Restore?

Ecosystem restoration is booming business, only getting boominger One positive side effect of polluting and despoiling the planet is that somebody stands to make money cleaning it up. (Hey, our glass is half full!) And sure enough, ecological restoration is a booming business. Viewed narrowly, as attempts to restore natural resources to something approximating their […]

Paul, Returned From Damascus

Duke Energy CEO has climate-change conversion, proposes carbon tax In a letter to shareholders last week, Duke Energy Corp. CEO Paul Anderson announced his company’s decision to lobby for a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions — a move that shocked shareholders and has some greens scratching their heads. Anderson said in a speech yesterday that he […]

Coast Busters

Oil and gas drillers set their sights on U.S. coastal areas A federal moratorium on oil and gas drilling off U.S. coasts has been in place for 24 years, but there are signs — the debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge being just one — that it may be in danger. The […]

Natural Logic CEO Gil Friend lays out the basics of sustainable business

Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, sustainable business guru, blogger, and future Grist InterActivist, gave a talk this week at San Fran's Commonweath Club called "Business and Sustainability: Risk, Fiduciary Responsibility, and the Laws of Nature." Joel, Jamais, and Gil himself have already blogged about it. But let me echo all of them and encourage you to read "Sustainable Business: A Delcaration of Leadership" (PDF). It's a simple, compact, and forceful presentation of the basic tenets of sustainable business. With pretty colors!

Want to do a good deed today? Print a bunch of these out and leave them at businesses in your community.

(Gil says to check back on the Nat Logic site soon for audio of the talk and a poster-sized version of the declaration.)

Giuliani joins law firm renowned for defending energy interests

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — whose name is often bandied about as a possible 2008 GOP presidential contender — added a splash of deep red to his moderate-Republican profile when he announced last week his decision to join a Texas-based law firm known for representing heavy-hitting energy companies. Rudy Giuliani. Photo: NYC.gov. […]

Readers talk back about Lakoff, immature humor, homeschoolers, and more

  Re: Don’t Think of the Environment Dear Editor: First, full disclosure: I am a former grad student of George Lakoff’s and was a research associate at the Rockridge Institute for several months. That should make my biases obvious. Amanda Griscom Little’s March 29 piece about Lakoff’s work with the Green Group provides some interesting […]

The cultural profile of environmentalism has drifted free of reality

John and Jamais make a great point. Media reaction to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focused, almost without exception, on gloom and doom -- the grim catalogue of what is currently wrong and the most apocalyptic scenario of where things could go from here. But the MEA contained much more than that, including several scenarios in which things change and improve in various ways. Read their posts for specifics on those scenarios.

I meant to address this way back when I was bitching at Nicholas Kristof, who complained about the "alarmism and extremism" of the green movement.

The cultural profile of environmentalism seems to have taken on a life of its own. "Environmentalism" means shouting about how the world's going to hell and condemning everyone who doesn't agree to live like a monk. When an environmental issue is covered in the media, that's how it gets covered -- if it doesn't fit that template, it's either forced in or ignored. When the public sees that kind of story, its eyes glaze. It all becomes -- for the green groups, those who consider them enemies, the groups' individual members, and the public at large -- incredibly predictable, and like anything predictable, it becomes background noise.

For a look at a particularly undiluted, flat-footed presentation of that stereotype ...

The Kids on the Bus Go Cough, Cough, Cough

Kids on school buses breathe more dangerous air than pedestrians Kids who ride the bus to school may be exposed to higher levels of pollutants than those outside on the street, a new study suggests. Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley measured the air inside six school buses on a route through Los […]

We can’t make this stuff up

Funny thing: We thought about writing something like this and slipping it in as one of our April Fool's stories. But we knew no one would buy it.