One of the most significant contrasts in the debate about environmental care is between those who prize the public gesture above all and those who demand significant, measurable change. The environmental movement is and always has been merely gesture politics, satisfied to pass laws or obtain judicial rulings that satisfy their demands on paper but never progress to actual measurement and monitoring. The continuing destruction of western US forests noted in Mama's Rules, where "preservationists" presided over the destruction of the very environments they were charged with preserving, is an obvious example of the general problem discussed in Mouse-based Monitoring and other posts.

...are the efforts of conservation organizations so lavishly funded by concerned donors effective? Are they actually doing conservation? No one knows and conservation organizations have no ways to find out. The standard requirements of every other sort of organization - from businesses to governments - for measuring, monitoring and auditing were entirely alien to conservation organizations. The only measurements they used were the magnitude of their budgets and the area of land that had somehow been 'saved' either by purchase or regulation; bucks and acres. They had no useful methods to measure whether they had actually done any good and their reporting consisted of little more than ill informed subjective responses to multiple choice questions - check the box that best applies: poor, fair, good.

This has also been the central failure of the battle of climate, environmentalism's Waterloo, the issue that has distracted them for the past decade and more and in which they have suffered defeat. Uber-Luddite Bill McKibben notes:

Since climate change emerged as an issue in the late 1980s, the U.S. environmental movement has floundered in its efforts to make progress. No legislation of any consequence has come close to passing the House or Senate; none of the three presidents in that period have really put their muscle behind any action; and the current administration has about as much interest in the issue as that of, say, Warren Harding. In short, pretty much a total rout, especially in contrast to Western Europe and Japan, where the progress, while modest and halting, has been real.

Modest and halting? Nonsense. They have made no progress. They have merely made gestures, public poses, and spoken comforting words while shedding crocodile tears. They have taken political steps to mollify the public, especially environmentalists who prize the empty gesture above all else, though the problem is technological and they have no clues whatsoever how to deal with that. Rather than admit impotence they have used the fear of climate change to increase political control of societies and economies while doing nothing useful about real issues. Bait and switch.

McKibben and others, notably Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus who caused a stir with their "The Death of Environmentalism" paper and subsequent speaking tour, are looking for a Plan B:

Here's what we know: The U.S. has wasted the 15 years since climate change emerged as a real problem. Its environmentalists have failed to make measurable progress on the greatest environmental challenge anyone's ever faced. So we better come up with something new.

The issue isn't the US, and the issue isn't the behavior of environmentalists. They are irrelevant and always have been. No one has done anything substantial because they can't. Bringing society to its knees and forcing it to swear fealty to the green demon doesn't help the environment. This is the rot at the core of environmentalism - they are all hat. Even if they conquered the world, took total control of every government, they couldn't do anything useful about environmental change because it isn't a political problem. Their efforts aren't merely futile, they actively make things worse.

There's a pattern here that has repeated in recent history. It is no coincidence that the collapse of communism immediately preceded the rise of political environmentalism since they share staff and core ideology. And they both make the same tragic error: they are slow to grasp social changes occuring all around them but when they do finally twig to change-in-progress they overreact and ruin everything by going to extremes, and by embracing totalitarian methods.

As societies industrialized they became more wealthy and wanted to continue that trend. To do so an ever greater percentage of the population had to be engaged, enfranchised, integrated into the social mind so that they could make ever greater contributions. Their health and well being became an issue as did their education. To be better contributors they required nuturing above historic levels. Belatedly, social theorists noticed this progress-in-progress and began to write and agitate for ever greater progress, as if it wasn't already occuring and was opposed by everyone except their anointed disciples. This is the written history taught and believed by politicists but fails to grapple with the fact that change began before the writings for pragmatic reasons, continued while the politicists drove several societies off various cliffs, and continues today.

Environmental preservation and remediation have a similar trajectory and are caused by similar pressures. To achieve ever higher levels of wealth and well being the environment must be cleaned up and managed well. People won't do high volume, high quality work if they are being harmed by their environments; sickened by air and water or felled by disease. The effort to improve environments began long before it was embraced by politicists or written about, continues while the politicists drive several societies off various cliffs, and continues today.

People suffered and died during the rise of industrialism and the consequent increases in wealth that have today made life so very much better in the developed world. They continue to do so in less developed parts of the world. Every bit of suffering is a tragedy but there is no magic to end it. It does no good to demand change and try to force it by assembling a mob to take control of society and, and... do something. It's the Red Monday dilemma, the reality that confronts the mob after their wild weekend in which they take control. Now what? Do they actually have a plan that will make things better? No, they didn't then and don't now. They just make things worse.

So what plans do these latter day drab mobs have for environmental improvement, especially their central demon climate change? They have some nebulous yearnings and childish fantasies about clean power but no realistic plans for deployment of such primitive technologies in sufficient quantities or at a fast enough rate to make any difference at all for climate though it will plunge the world into economic ruin if pursued vigorously. Which will make things worse as the world's billions struggle to survive, and ravage the land in the process, spewing even greater amounts of gunk, unable to worry about tomorrow when faced with demise today.

Patience and wisdom are required. We couldn't raise every person in industrializing countries to a level high enough to allow them to fully participate in one swell foop, but we made steady progress and today are in very much better condition. The trick is to look ahead, anticipate the results of programs over time, and choose the ones that have the greatest net yield over the term. The inability to hold your mud while the process works, incontinently exploding and making a mess that harms everyone, obviously doesn't help no matter how many heroic ballads and false histories are written. In the end the tale of the tape, actual measurement, is what matters. You can't convince the tape to read falsely. It doesn't have beliefs or respond to rhetoric. It is immune to politics and persuasion.

Environmental management, including climate management, is identical. It's an aspect of the larger dynamic of social evolution and advancement. As technology advanced, replacing beasts of burden with self-propelled vehicles, the rivers of shit that once flowed through cities spreading disease and making life miserable were eliminated. The lot of individuals, especially the poorest, improved greatly both economically and environmentally. Now it is the exhaust of those self-propelled vehicles that is a concern, as the exhaust of horses and oxen were in the past. Better technologies with even more benign exhaust are emerging. We can't simply demand immediate change. We have to hold our mud while the process works. We have to do this because failure to be patient and wise makes things worse, delays progress.

Those who have always had democratic and egalitarian values, as well as the patience and wisdom to do useful social work, always opposed the totalitarians who caused so much grief in the name of those values. Similarly, those who are truly concerned with environmental remediation and preservation, including climate management, oppose the actions of those like McKibben and fellow travelers who cause so much grief in the name of the environment.

We need to face the reality that the behavior of the US on this issue is superior to that of European posers, just as it was for social progress in the last century. The continuing defects and failures must be seen in the context of progress and judged by probable outcomes rather than empty rhetoric. The tale of the tape can only be ignored and denied for so long. We are at a cusp, like the change from horses to automobiles, when we can easily glimpse a better future but not yet live in it. Tragic harm is still happening and will continue to happen during the transition, just as people continued to die from disease and had their shoes rot off their feet due to the acids from manure that covered the streets of those old cities. We can't just waive a rhetorical wand and make instant change. The attempts of drab mobs to force instant change only delay progress by squandering energy and resources on false objectives.

The environmental movement is the worst enemy of the environment and thoughtful environmentalists just as communists and revolutionary socialists were the worst enemies of socialism. They fail to understand how society is evolving and that their violent, confrontational demands hamper that evolution. The Death of Environmentalism would be a good thing if it was true, but it isn't. Even if that particular form of expression is largely abandoned, as socialism has been now that it is so thoroughly discredited, a different outlet for these socially destructive behaviors will be found. There's no cure for this type of sociopathy. But true environmentalism will endure, just as the basic objectives of socialism endure, patiently and wisely making progress - real measurable progress. Though we endure tragedy, we bury our premature dead and keep working to make things better.