When it comes to global warming, are people helping at all when they bike instead of driving, when they plant vegetable gardens and hang their laundry outside? The answer, according to Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, is not much, though it does make us feel good.
The environmental activists and writers were the keynote speakers at the Sun Valley Sustainability Conference last weekend. They advocated that we re-examine everything we think we know about global warming and environmental politics, and look at our world as it is and not as what we wish it were.
"We want to offer something more than the top 10 ways to go green," Shellenberger said. "We want to challenge what our authentic relation to the world is."
They both said that working locally is effective and noble, but that policy change on a much larger scale will be needed to curb global warming. All the standards, cap-and-trade limits and emission reductions that environmentalists push for may slow, but will never reverse, the warming trend.
"In order to transition away from fossil fuel, we have to create clean energy that is cheap," Shellenberger said. "Americans are pretty good at making things cheap."
Shellenberger and Nordhaus argue that green bubbles and their subsequent burst have come in 20-year patterns that coincide with highly polarized periods in American politics. Having a singular vision for the future is difficult since one aspect of the green movement focuses entirely on nature while another hopes to lead by creating new options, they said.
"Nature is discordant and it can never be the thing that brings us together," Nordhaus said.
He said people who are starving or facing ecological disasters feel differently about nature than do those with more opportunities.
Since development is inevitable, the two speakers said, taking a pro-growth, pro-technology and pro-environment stance makes more sense than fighting it.
"We have to embrace the complexity of the issues," Nordhaus said. "We need to drastically modernize energy technology."
Michael Shellenberger shared keynote address duties with his partner, Ted Nordhaus, at the Sustainability Conference on Friday evening in Sun Valley.
Photo by David N. Seelig
