Image: Christian Science Monitor
The case for Greening the country is not doing well in Washington legislation, and has been advanced on the basis of economic self-interest. Is this strategy working? No.
A good deal of the progress in LGBT civil rights, women's rights and anti-racism struggles have been fought on the basis of ethics, combined with economics and job creation. Martin Luther King Jr., Harvey Milk, Cesar Chavez, Gandhi, and a host of civil rights leaders led millions to engage not just on the legal or economic frontier, but by standing on the moral high ground. Should we be talking about the ethics of a world in crisis?
20 million in Pakistan are made homeless by climate-related floods, Moscow residents fled a city choked by fire, and other extreme weather/climate events dominated this hottest global summer. Should we be pointing out that dirty energy campaign contributions that are killing the planet are unethical, and should be refused by candidates? Should we "out" dirty energy politicos, whoever they are? LGBT folks certainly work hard to point out homophobic companies which are biased, and at root, that is an ethical argument. Can Greens learn from the ethical strategies and tactics of grassroots leaders of other movements? I say they can, and must. The discussion of ethics-as-strategy in Greendom has begun, along with a realization that Green leadership needs to organize, not just negotiate their way to mitigating global warming. If more so-called minority groups, were at the big Green table, the learning curve on the importance of ethics in strategy would probably be faster, too.
Source: Read more at climate ethics
We would like now to explain in greater detail why taking the ethical reasons for support of climate change policies off the table in the debate about climate change is tantamount to a soccer team unilaterally taking the goalie out of the net. In other words, a case can be made that the ethical arguments are actually much stronger than self-interest based arguments at least in some very important ways. Therefore the failure to make the ethical arguments for climate change policies should be a concern because such failure has practical consequences.
Kathleen,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more. The ethics of most Green Groups is virtually nonexistent and this fact alone weakens their efforts tremendously. A good example is The Wilderness Society headquartered in Washington, DC. This group is suffering from nepotism, cronyism, and racial discrimination. These elements have been written off as bad management, but the same behavior shows up in all of their decisions. Saving Wilderness is not considered when making personnel decisions or financial decisions. If saving wilderness is your mission, then this should be first considered in all of your decisions. The Wilderness Society have become a White Group instead of an effective Green Group. Employees with many years of stellar experience were released from the company in preference of friends. Even vendors are friends. The contributions of donors that want to stop the devastation of their environment are used to finance lifestyles of narrow minded self centered individuals that pretend to give a damn about the environment. I pray for this world.
Thanks,
Phil Lantropy