{"id":68723,"date":"2024-06-21T19:36:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-22T00:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68723"},"modified":"2024-06-21T19:36:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-22T00:36:20","slug":"the-death-of-environmentalism-at-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68723","title":{"rendered":"The Death of Environmentalism at 20"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Death of Environmentalism at 20<\/a><\/h3>\n

Looking back at the impactful Shellenberger\/Nordhaus essay<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The bad boys of environmentalism<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Twenty years ago, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus \u201cdropped\u201d (in Ted\u2019s words) an essay at the annual meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association titled,\u00a0The Death of Environmentalism<\/a>\u00a0(DoE). The DoE prompted a vigorous debate about environmentalism in the United States that continues today.<\/p>\n

Here is how the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0characterized the reaction<\/a>\u00a0to the essay in 2005:<\/p>\n

The leaders of the environmental movement were livid last fall when Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, two little-known, earnest environmentalists in their 30’s, presented a 12,000-word thesis arguing that environmentalism was dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The essay, and the reaction to it, led directly to the creation of\u00a0The Breakthrough Institute<\/a>, a small but influential Berkeley-based think tank that consistently punches well above its weight.1<\/a><\/span>\u00a0After the DoE was released, Bill McKibben\u00a0labeled\u00a0<\/a>Shellenberger and Nordhaus, \u201cthe bad boys of environmentalism.\u201d2<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cbad boys\u201d split a while back and have gone their different ways.3<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Ted continues to direct The Breakthrough Institute, which today has established itself as a leading think tank on environment and technology.<\/p>\n

As I write this I am in San Francisco, California at the well-named\u00a0Breakthrough Dialogue<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the 14th and final annual gathering of Breakthrough\u2019s fellow travelers, constructive critics, and simply curious. Being the final Dialogue, it is focused on looking back at the past 20 years since the DoE.<\/p>\n

With this post, I\u2019ll share a few of my thoughts on the DoE and the very important debate that it started and continues to rage today over the meaning and future of environmentalism in the United States.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Death of Environmentalism at 20 Looking back at the impactful Shellenberger\/Nordhaus essay The bad boys of environmentalism Twenty years ago, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus \u201cdropped\u201d (in Ted\u2019s words) an essay at the annual meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association titled,\u00a0The Death of Environmentalism\u00a0(DoE). The DoE prompted a vigorous debate about environmentalism in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[4012,30429],"class_list":["post-68723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-environmentalism","tag-roger-pielke-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68724,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68723\/revisions\/68724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}