>  Steven Bissell wrote:

>
> What I wonder, and often ask my students in Environmental Policy,
> is why has
> "Environmentalism" become a politically liberal issue and
> "anti-Environmentalism" a politically conservative issue? I've
> been reading
> a few "reviews" of Lomborg and it is clear that the conservative press has
> really jumped on this bandwagon, while criticism is coming mainly from the
> left, or from the environmental camp.
>
> I remember back to the first Earth Day when the major objections
> to it came
> from the left. The civil rights and anti-war movements saw
> environmentalism
> as conservative, white, middle class dilettantism, and a cynical
> attempt to
> take support away from them.

CP: This is interesting.  A colleague of mine is very active in the role of
value AND science of sustainable management - particularly in relation to
co-management of ecosystems where science and the traditional harvest by
Maori people is involved (they harvest young Sooty Shearwaters - aka
muttonbirds - aka titi).  He was also involved in the development of the
ethics and the science of sustainable management systems in forestry - e.g.
adaptive management systems; qualifying and quantifying the values that
sustainable management ought to be aware of (ie NOT a 'resourcism',
'sustainable yield' value system).

He comes from a history of the environmental protest movement of the 70s -
essentially against the dominant 'resourcism' ethic of the time, and what he
considered unsustainable practices when considering the wider ecological
issues - rather than looking at forests as merely an agronomic 'crop' of
wood.  At that time he was in the mainstream of a united environmental
movement.

Interestingly - because of his advocacy of social equity and science in
ecosystem management, which involves essentially an acknowledgement that
humans and culture can, and *must* coexist - he has been referred to as an
"anti-environmentalist", even as a traitor to environmentalism.  Those that
point this particular finger tend not to share his view that human inclusion
does NOT necessarily harm nature, nor that excluding humans necessarily
'protects' nature.  By the same token, he is opposed to *both* the
'resourcism' camp that sees nature as some robust mine for human hubris
(what you could call the "conservative" camp), and to the preservationism
idealists that he associates with an urban, well meaning, though often
ecologically naive and probably URBAN liberal politics.

Those of a Manichaen bent will put my colleague either into a
'conservative', 'resourcism' camp (because he dares to suggest humans can be
included in some ideal of ecological sustainability), or into the "loony
left", "environmentalist" camp.  In so doing they highlight their own
particular values rather than his.  They also simplify the issue.

I think it is much more helpful to consider at least three 'camps' -
1.'resourcism', 2.what you could call 'ecological sustainability' (which
accommodates culture and nature), and 3.'preservationism'.   The two
extremes *may* correlate to some political positions of conservatism and
urban liberalism, but the middle ground of ecological sustainability
probably transcends that political spectrum.

I also think that the two extremes (resourcism and preservationism) have
much in common!  Particularly their views on the nature:culture
relationship.  I reckon they both are very happy with the idea of humans
being separate from nature.  They compete over land to ensure it either
falls into the preserve of agronomy (perhaps "laissez faire market
economy"), or into the preserve of what Drury (Chance & Change: Ecology for
Conservationists 1998) called "laissez faire nature" (where nature is
beleved to know best, and 'protects' itself where humans aren't in
evidence - a view that Drury pretty much demolishes).  So they view nature
as either 'whore' to exploit, or 'Madonna' to worship in its non-human
'purity'.

Both IMHO compete *against* an integration of culture and nature, and - if
you view that integration as some necessary step required for an
environmental ethic that may provide us with a sustainable future - then
both resourcism *and* preservationism represent a part of the problem,
rather than part of a solution.  That argument that we need that ethic rests
on many implicit assumptions of course.  They also give tacit support for
having *only* the two extremes on show - by NOT allowing an inclusive
philosophy (which was very much Leopold's message in Sand Couty Almanac) to
set a seed.  So they are both part of the problem in my view.

Anyway, I guess the point is that "environmentalism" vs
"anti-environmentalism" is much more complex that some black or white
typology, and what constitutes "environmentalism" has moved from *merely* an
opposition to resourcism, to - at least for some environmentalists - an
attempt to look beyond the problems to some search for solutions - solutions
which *necessarily* accommodate humanity within the environment, rather than
as segregated elements outside it.

Both resourcism that views the world in a narrow sense of yield and monetary
value, and preservationism that focuses continually on ever more obscure
problems (many picked for their PR appeal rather than for objective
reasons), might BOTH be considered "anti-environmental", because the
preservationist cause may at times work against a protected environment as
much as the resourcism cause.  That is how it appears in NZ where the vision
of a human-inclusive ecologically sustainable land ethic has next to no
political mandate.

But perhaps that is politics modus operandi - to force the issue in two
camps - like that idiot Bush's comments that "you are either for us, or
against us", or his mind numbingly moronic statement about the fight against
terrorism being a "crusade".  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Chris P