The Case for a New American Environmentalism

• Date: 01 January 2009

39 ELR 10066 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORT ER 1-2009

A

specter is haunting American environmentalism—the

specter of failure.

All of us who have been par t of the environmental move-

ment in the United States must now face up to a deeply trou-

bling paradox: Our environmental organizations have grown in

strength and sophistication, but the environment has contin-

ued to go downhill, to the point that the prospect of a ruined

planet is now very real. How could this have happened?

Before addressing this question and what can be done to

correct it, t wo points must be made. First, one shudders to

think what the world would look like today without the efforts

of environmental groups and their hard-won victories in recent

decades. However serious our environmental challenges, they

would be much more so had not these people taken a stand

in countless ways. And second, despite their limitations, the

approaches of modern-day environmentalism remain essen-

tial. Right now, they are the tools readily at hand with which

to address many pressing problems, including global warm-

ing and climate disruption. Despite the critique of American

environmentalism that follows, these points remain valid.

I. Lost Ground

The need for appraisal would not be so urgent if environ-

mental conditions were not so dire. The mounting threats

point to an emerging environment al tragedy of unprece-

dented propor tions.

One-half of the world’s tropical and temperate forests are

now gone. The rate of deforestation in the tropics continues at

about an acre a second, and has for decades. One-half of the

planet’s wetlands are gone. An estimated 9 0% of the large

predator f‌ish are gone, and 75% of marine f‌isheries are now

overf‌ished or f‌ished to capacity. Almost one-half of the corals

are gone or are seriously threatened. Species are estimated to

be disappearing at rates about 1,00 0 times faster than nor-

mal. The planet has not seen such a spasm of extinction in 65

million years, since the dinosaurs disappeared. Desertif‌ica-

tion claims a Nebraska-sized area of productive capacity each

year globally. Persistent toxic chemicals can now be found by

the dozens in essentially each and every one of us.

The earth’s stratospheric ozone layer was severely depleted

before its loss was discovered. Human activities have pushed

atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) up by more than one-third

and have started in ea rnest the most dangerous change of

all: planetary warming and climate disruption. Everywhere,

earth’s ice f‌ields are melting. Industrial processes are f‌ix-

ing nitrogen, making it biologically active, at a rate equal to

nature’s; one result is the development of hundreds of docu-

mented dead zones in the oceans due to overfertilization.

Freshwater withdrawals are now over one-half of accessible

runoff, and water shortages are multiplying here and abroad.

The United States, of course, is deeply complicit in these

global trends, including our responsibility for about 30% of

the CO2 added thus far to the atmosphere. But even within the

United States itself, four decades of environmental effort have

not stemmed the tide of environmental decline. The countr y

is losing 6,0 00 acres of open space every day, and 100,00 0

acres of wetlands every year. About one-third of U.S. plant

and animal species are threatened with extinction. One-half

of U.S. lakes and one-third of its rivers still fail to meet the

standards that by law should have been met by 1983. And we

have done little to curb our wasteful energy habits or our huge

population growth.

Here is one measure of the problem: All we have to do to

destroy the planet’s climate and biota and leave a ruined world

to our children and grandchildren is to keep doing exactly

what we are doing today, with no growth in human population

or the world economy. Just continue to generate greenhouse

gases at current rates, just continue to impoverish ecosystems

and release toxic chemicals at current rates, and the world in

the latter part of this century will not be f‌it to live in.

The Case for a New American

Environmentalism

Incremental change led by lawyers, scientists, and

economists will not save our environment

by James Gustave Speth

James Gustave Speth is dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the author of The

Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing From Crisis to Sustainability, from

which this Article is adapted. It originally appeared in Yale Environment 360 (http://e360.yale.edu).