Building the new environmentalism | Ensia.
Forty-four years after the first Earth Day, we must ask a basic question: What is an environmental issue? Air and water pollution, yes. But what if the right answer is that an environmental issue is anything that determines environmental outcomes? Then the definition becomes something much broader, rooted in defining features of our political economy: an unquestioning societywide commitment to economic growth at any cost; a measure of growth, GDP, that includes everything — the good, the bad and the ugly; the ascendancy of money power and corporate power over people power; powerful corporate interests whose overriding objective is to grow by generating profit, including profit from avoiding the environmental costs they create; markets that systematically fail to recognize environmental costs unless corrected by government; government that is subservient to corporate interests and the growth imperative; rampant consumerism spurred endlessly by sophisticated advertising; social injustice and economic insecurity so vast they empower often false claims that needed measures would slow growth, hurt the economy or cost jobs; economic activity now so enormous that its impacts alter the fundamental biophysical operations of the planet.
All of these combine to deliver an ever-growing economy that is undermining the ability of the planet to sustain human and natural communities. That means all of these are environmental issues. Yet very few are addressed by U.S. environmental law, and rarely do they appear on the agendas of mainstream environmental organizations.
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