Carlos Rymer Towards A New Dialogue About The Movement

May, 2007

Responding to the “Politics of Unsustainability”: An Agenda For The Global

Environmental Movement1

Recently, Bluhdorn and Welsh of the United Kingdom published a comprehensive

overview of the state of environmental politics in the Journal of Environmental Politics (April,
2007). Titled Eco-politics beyond the Paradigm of Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework and
Research Agenda, the journal article concludes that the perceived progress in environmental
policies and discussions (including the recent upsurge in media coverage about global warming)
is in fact merely a discussion of managing our seeming inability to be sustainable and framing
fundamental, “radical” changes in institutional action to influence markets in terms that sustain a
politics of unsustainability (such as ecological modernization, sustainable development,
alternative technologies, etc.). I do not intend to discuss their main arguments, but I want to
summarize them here:
• The environmental crisis is worsening globally, and we are becoming attuned to solving
one problem at a time through problem-specific fixes rather than society-specific fixes.
• The environmental movement has been almost fully integrated into governmental
processes and discussions, which has tamed demands for scientifically justified,
fundamental changes in human behaviors and institutional actions. Demands for science-
backed changes have been neutralized and reframed as ideas that are now mainstream.
• We have been discussing how to achieve sustainability for a very long time, have created
concepts that convey progress and satisfy people and the broader movement, and have
established bureaucratic processes to “talk” about different issues, but have not addressed
the fundamental problem of unimpeded, unnecessary consumption where it is very high.
• We have assumed that we can solve environmental problems through technological fixes,
and continue to hold the assumption that the current democratic form of capitalism that
promotes consumption cannot be modified.
• We have completely delved into discussions without setting concrete actions that affect
society at all levels, and that in turn has put us far behind scientific measurements that
indicate that planetary conditions are worsening.
1
The author, Carlos Rymer, is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York studying sustainable
development. He is a campus climate challenge leader, state organizer in New Jersey, and leader of other efforts to
reduce global warming pollution and fully place sustainability goals into society’s improvement. He may be
contacted at cmr55@cornell.edu or 551-556-0189.
Carlos Rymer Towards A New Dialogue About The Movement
May, 2007
• We have accepted a system where politicians act to do what consumers prefer (greater
material consumption) and where consumers distrust political actions, thus preventing
realistic dialogue.
• We have created a political-discussion system that has instead worsened our ability to
address the environmental crisis through concrete actions that will ultimately nullify our
negative environmental impact and allow us to make positive environmental impacts.

These arguments are summarized from an academic point of view, and are more fully
explained in the authors’ article. Yet I am an activist, and I want to discuss this in terms of what
this means to the environmental movement, and in particular to the climate movement, so I
strongly suggest attributing any criticism to the section below, and not to what I’ve summarized
above.
As an activist who’s up-to-date with the progress of the climate movement, I am proud to
conclude that we have made great strides towards getting the message out about the state of our
climate, the actions that we need to take immediately, and the need to grow the movement
further. With the recent national day of action in the United States, Step It Up, I believe we have
enough momentum to enlist U.S. legislators to an agenda of reducing global warming pollution
substantially. However, now that we have this momentum, we need to fully use it not just to
ensure that we ensure a safe climate, but so that we enter a real sustainability revolution that will
fundamentally change markets, consumer culture, and the process of politics to achieve the
following goals (8-Point Plan):
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world 90% below 1990 levels by the
year 2030. This goal has been justified by the most current science, and it is one we in the
climate movement must begin to embrace before we lock ourselves into a system that
was designed to reduce emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, is not flexible, and
does not address the necessary institutional changes to value natural and human capital
(i.e. price ecosystem services and human depreciation so that our consumer culture is
fundamentally placed within the framework of science-backed sustainability).
• Reduce the global ecological footprint to that which the Earth can sustain.
• Engage the developed world with the developing world in changing the current economic
indicator, GDP, into a new, agreed-upon indicator that equally treats economic,
Carlos Rymer Towards A New Dialogue About The Movement
May, 2007
environmental, and social aspects as part of the human economy (this will involve
substantial discussion about what should go into the indicator and how developing
countries will measure them, and so will require large institutional changes and financial
support).
• Engage the United States with the rest of the world in a discussion on how to fully price
natural and human capital as part of markets, so as to change consumer culture.
• Engage in a discussion about necessary changes to the current political system so that
consumers and politicians are better aligned with real necessary actions, whether they
constrain or provide incentives (i.e. we need to make sure agendas are created based on
real environmental and social needs, and not on special-interest desires).
• Establish a global agreement to protect environmentally and socially degrading
businesses from losing market share (i.e. subsidizing them to change in order to do what
is environmentally and socially required while maintaining a fairly competitive market)
so they can profit from doing environmental and social good (and so that we tame the
opposition rather than having them taming us).
• Fully fund the most innovative ideas and developments about how to progress towards a
sustainable society that improves rather than grow.
• Rethink governments so as to ensure that different communities within a nation have
political representatives (i.e. provide anthropologists, businesspeople, economists,
engineers, environmentalists, scientists, sociologists, etc. with the right to have an equal
vote in governmental decision-making).

We cannot focus on one issue without addressing the broader crisis; doing so may get us
past one problem, but it will ultimately tame us after victory, leaving the rest of the crisis in a
worsening trend. As a climate activist, I have been mainly promoting action to fight global
warming, yet I believe that we have the capacity to avert the environmental crisis altogether.
Therefore, I propose to the climate movement and the broader environmental movement to
achieve the proposed agenda:
• Use the current momentum in the movement to reframe our demands in terms of
solutions to the environmental crisis, not just global warming.
Carlos Rymer Towards A New Dialogue About The Movement
May, 2007
• Demand 90% reductions below 1990 levels in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in the
United States and the rest of the developed world, and 60% by 2030 globally.
• Establish a large coalition of U.S. non-governmental organizations that includes all
communities (scientific, environmental, religious, youth, etc.) and whose goal is to
empower people to make decisions about their influence to create institutional change in
order to achieve the goals (note: inner discussions and dissent are good, as long as they’re
within the framework of the long-term, science-backed goals).
• Create a comprehensive, bold demand (such as the 8-Point Plan) that is approved by this
large, inclusive coalition and externalize ourselves from partnerships that soften our
demands so as to ensure that they are met through national legislation and global
agreements that outline concrete, aggressive steps.
• Cast ourselves as the initiators of the dialogue about the politics of unsustainability and
the institutional changes that must take place to value natural and human capital, change
our consumer culture, and rethink government structure.

The time to begin this discussion is now. Presidential candidates in the United States are
claiming to have bold plans to fight global warming, environmental problems are exacerbating,
and attitudes in the global human society are favoring action that will do nothing less than solve
human and environmental problems. A discussion about this is not something that should divide
us; that is not my intention. Rather, a discussion about this and a positive reaction to this
proposal may ensure that we achieve the greatest societal impact with the current movement we
are building. Through the lens of the environmental crisis, there is no time to lose. We must talk
now.