Does Mother Nature bend? If not, what do we do then?
Eco-pragmatism: Seeking middle ground between human progress and the environment
On Monday morning, some 60 people gathered in the swank confines of the Vancouver Club to discuss the idea of reaching a compromise with Mother Nature.
That might not be how they would put it. Their meeting had the ambitious title of the first Vancouver Eco-Pragmatist Summit — presumably with the idea that their molehill, in terms of attendance, anyway, might some day turn into a mountain. They were there to talk about the environment, as they saw it.
As the name suggests, ecopragmatism offers a dissenting view of traditional environmentalism. If they’re pragmatists, then traditional environmentalists are, by definition, not.
Its proponents see the goals of the traditional environmental movement as too rigid and unreasonable, and that it needs to shift toward a more sensible middle ground where human progress and the environment can both be accommodated.
Eco-pragmatists’ critics, on the other hand, see the movement as a dangerous and thinly disguised capitulation to business interests. Edward O. Wilson, renowned biologist, author and icon of the conservation movement, once confronted a leader of the eco-pragmatist movement by asking: “Where do you plant that white flag you’re carrying?”
Well, how about here, in the home of Greenpeace?
“I think there’s a discussion around climate change,” said Leah Costello, the local event organizer who put on the summit, “and a disagreement over the extent and degree of environmental catastrophe we may face in the future. And I think that’s important to explore.”
Stated her press release about the summit’s agenda:
“What can we do to create a world in which people thrive but not at the cost of the environment, and where the environment thrives but not because we’ve curtailed human progress? A world where ‘and’ is possible?”
An overwhelming majority of the scientific community warn there is no “and” — that the predicted effects of global warming and ocean acidification will be so calamitous that we have to radically change our ways and ideas of “progress” before it is too late, if it isn’t already.
In reply to that, eco-pragmatism would offer something less dire and a more hopeful view of the future: that climate change may not be as bad as predicted and that the compromise with Mother Nature I mentioned above is possible.
The question is: Does Mother Nature compromise?
If she doesn’t, and the tenets of eco-pragmatism are wrong, what then?
Costello acknowledged that some of the funding for the summit came from oil and gas interests. And the morning’s agenda began on that very subject, with a debate between author and former CIBC head economist Jeff Rubin on one side, and Business Council of B.C. chief policy officer Jock Finlayson and former Greenpeace founding member and now avowed “sensible environmentalist” Patrick Moore on the other. Rubin, author of the recently published The Carbon Bubble, argued that fossil fuels will and should play a smaller part in Canada’s economy because of environmental and economic pressures, while Finlayson and Moore argued it will still be vital to Canada’s future.
The feature speaker of the summit was Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and founder in 2011 of the U.S. for-profit think-tank Center for Industrial Progress.
“For the past 40 years,” the CIP’s website states, “so-called environmentalists have held back industrial progress around the world. That’s why we’re helping industry fight for its freedom, with new ideas, arguments, and policies that will improve our economy and our environment.” Epstein, who is 34, is not a trained scientist, but does have a B.A. in philosophy from Duke University.
We did a half-hour interview before his speech. He was wearing a T-shirt that read: “I (Heart) Fossil Fuels.”
“If you look at the thought leaders in what’s called the Green movement,” Epstein said, “the basic idea or goal should be to minimize our impact on nature as much as possible. And if you take that goal consistently, it leads to pre-industrial life and ultimately human nonexistence.”
Placing restrictions on fossil fuel consumption, or reducing it drastically, he said, would be a disaster, and according to his research would “undoubtedly end billions of lives prematurely.”
Then what of the announcement the leaders of the recent G7 summit promising to end the use of fossil fuels by the turn of the century, he was asked? Were they wrong in making that commitment?
Yes, Epstein said, they were. After all, he said, these were leaders of nations that had made momentous mistakes in the 20th century.
“These are the same nations that had the eugenics movement, that supported communism and that supported Nazism ...”
A breathtaking generalization about the historical culpability of nations, that was, which not only ignored the fact that governments sometimes make the right decisions, but which somehow managed to drag Nazis into a discussion about environmentalism. I think I can safely say there wasn’t a single thing on which we agreed.
Mark me down as unequivocally unpragmatic.