The Problem With The Environmental Movement

Why the environmental movement is unable to achieve its goals and what it needs today to succeed.

1 minute read

March 16, 2005, 10:00 AM PST

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


The U.S. environmental movement is unable to win on even its very top priorities, even though it has the advantage of mostly being right...

The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. Some do great work, but others can be the left's equivalents of the neocons: brimming with moral clarity and ideological zeal, but empty of nuance. (Industry has also hyped risks with wildly exaggerated warnings that environmental protections will entail a terrible economic cost.)...

...The loss of credibility is tragic because reasonable environmentalists - without alarmism or exaggerations - are urgently needed."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan

Saturday, March 12, 2005 in The New York Times

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