Saturday, December 01, 2007

The Post Environmental Movement Took Off In 2004?

According to USA Today columnist Laura Vanderkam,

"The post-environmental movement took off in late 2004, when Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, green movement veterans, published an essay called The Death of Environmentalism. In the essay they argued that the traditional environmental approach — identify a pollutant, mobilize public opinion, pass a law to stop it — was inadequate for dealing with global warming. For starters, there's no one polluter to target. We're all sinners. "
Really? That is news to us and we have been working in the environmental movement for 28 years. Admittedly they shook up the Sierra Club and some other traditional environmentalist groups. But we knew those mainstream groups had lost their way at least a decade before Vanderkam's Nordhaus/Shellenberger revelation. We agree with Vanderkam that, "Americans don't like to limit ourselves, period. If fighting global warming requires sitting in the dark, we'll never do it." AAEA has long stated that Blacks want to participate in aggressive capitalism 'before' we are asked to conserve. America's Black community IS China and India when it comes to global warming and other energy issues. Yet we believe technology CAN mitigate environmental degradation while aggressively pursuing capitalism.

We also agree with Nordhaus/Shellenberger for proposing a $300 billion investment in a technology solution-based approach in this new economy. African Americans want to be right in the middle of this energy renaissance. Unfortunately, some are still dodging our participation.

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