What should Eco-Modernists believe?
But often don't.
Let me start by saying that I do not consider myself to be an Eco-Modernist, but I do regard many of them as potential allies. My goal is to promote an awareness and understanding of human material progress.
By progress, I mean “the sustained improvement in the material standard of living of a large group of people over a long period of time.” I more fully explain my views in my Manifesto for the Progress-based Perspective. I place humanity above the natural environment in my value system, and I am proud of it. If you want to, you may call me a Modernist, though I do not think the term fully captures my beliefs.
Having said that, I do not think that a concern for protecting the natural environment always conflicts with promoting human material progress. In some cases it does, but most often it does not.
This is where Eco-Modernism comes in. While I focus almost exclusively on promoting human material progress, Eco-Modernists focus almost exclusively on protecting the natural environment. That does not make us enemies or even opponents. It just means that we have different interests and domains of policy focus.
How do you define Eco-Modernist?
Let’s start by defining our terms. I do not think that there is a widely accepted definition of Eco-Modernism, so allow me to invent my own.
As I see it, Eco-Modernists believe in:
Modernism + Conservationism + Technological Innovation
If anyone labels themselves an “Eco-Modernists” without strongly believing in all three concepts, then I would question how much of an Eco-Modernist they actually are.
Let’s start with the obvious. The term “Eco-Modernist” is a concatenation of the words Environmentalist and Modernist.
So what is a Modernist? Again, there is no universally accepted definition. The term is more closely associated with an artistic movement. The term was only applied more broadly used once Post-Modernist came into vogue after World War II, and they often used it in a derogatory way.
Modernism is supposed to capture the core foundations of the United States and Western Europe in and before the 1960s. I believe that Modernists believe (or at least should believe) in:
Constitutional government
Individual rights (for example the Bill of Rights)
Democratic governance
Technological innovation
Pluralism
Market-based economy
Economic growth
One material reality that we can understand and act upon
Science
Logic and Reason
Modern Medicine
Each Modernist will have a different take on each of the above, but as a group, they largely agree on the above.
Why Eco-Modernists are Conservationists
So what is an Environmentalist? Unfortunately, the term has undergone great changes from the 1960s until today. Particularly since 1990, climate activists have almost entirely swallowed up the Environmentalist movement (which is very bad for them in the long run, I think). So to clearly differentiate 1960s environmentalists from Greens and climate activists, I will use an older term: Conservationism.
Eco-Modernists are basically what used to be called Conservationists. The Conservation movement of the early and mid 20th Century played a major role in setting up National Parks, State Parks, and Nature Reserves. They want to wall off certain parts of the natural environment from excessive human exploitation. Conservationists believe that if a significant portion of land and oceans are set aside from major human impacts, nature will find a way.
Conservationists had several (sometimes conflicting) goals:
Ensure that critical natural resources are never exhausted by overuse (their original goal).
Set aside critical natural habitats by establishing nature preserves.
Protect and, if possible, restore endangered species.
Enable humans to enjoy the most scenic portions of nature. Many Conservationists attached a spiritual power to those sites.
Promote outdoor recreation and exercise.
While some Conservationists tended towards anti-Modern Green ideology, most saw their goal as balancing human needs and the needs of nature. Typically, they would identify certain plots of land that were either critical habitat, biodiversity hotspots, or were especially scenic.
Conservationists focused their efforts on protecting land that was not essential for energy, cities, mineral extraction, or agriculture. Fortunately, there is a strong overlap between areas that are important to nature with those that are also not important to humanity.
As I see it, the Eco-Modernists just append a concern for protecting the natural environment to Modernists ideals. In this way, Eco-Modernism is just a wing of Modernism.
How do Eco-Modernists differ from Greens?
The simple answer is Greens strongly reject one or more of the Modernist ideals. Of course, there is great variation in the degree to which Greens disagree on Modernist assumptions. Some reject or at least are suspicious of just a few tenets, while some do so for all of them.
Now, let me be clear. Millions of voters are sympathetic to the Green agenda while accepting all or almost all of the Modernist belief system. Those “Normies” simply do not realize the contradiction between Modernism and Green ideology, and Greens are more than happy to keep them confused.
For many of those voters, supporting Green policies is just a way of showing that they care about the natural environment without really having to do anything about it.
These “Green” voters span the political spectrum, though they tend to be concentrated on the Center and Left. They are particularly concentrated among young people who have few life experiences and so are vulnerable to those who claim to have “good intentions.”
I believe that most of those voters will eventually reject the Green agenda or at least not be willing to pay a significant cost for their views. They will support the Greens in good times, but reject them in bad times. They might occasionally donate to Green organizations, but they do not want to pay higher taxes or lose economic opportunities.
As young Green voters gain experience, they will drop out of the movement, forcing Greens to recruit a new generation of young people who are strong on moralism but weak on policy knowledge. So the cycle continues.
Some Greens are Reactionaries who reject all Modernist ideals. They believe that the modern world since 1830 has been a downward spiral that needs to be stopped before humanity destroys itself. These Greens show a surprising amount of agreement with 19th-century conservatives who rejected the modern world and wanted to return to a pre-Industrial order.
These Greens are best understood as “Degrowthers.” Degrowthers want to stop and roll back the following as fast as possible:
Economic growth
Energy usage
Human population
Most Degrowthers know that their agenda is deeply unpopular with most people, so they disguise their beliefs. They pretend that they are actually concerned about climate change or animals. In many cases, they have fooled themselves that this is true.
The vast majority of Greens reject a market-based economy and embrace some sort of movement towards collectivist socialism. Many Greens want to expand government interventions to such an extent that they are better understood as just Socialists in disguise.
The vast majority of Greens also view constitutional government, individual rights, pluralism, and democratic governance as a great inconvenience in the quest to establish their agenda. They may not be opposed to all four, but they certainly constantly seek to end-run them in the political process.
Very few Greens openly state their opposition to constitutional government, individual rights, pluralism, and democratic governance, but it is apparent by their methods. They are more than happy to circumvent the political process with international agreements, court actions, judicial rulings, executive orders, and regulations implemented by unelected bureaucrats. If taken to its logical extreme, amounts to a new path to Totalitarianism.
Greens are also quite hostile to technological innovation, particularly in the domains of energy, biology, and agriculture. They strongly favor renewable energy, and organics and are opposed to biotechnologies. They see the great technological innovations of the Industrial Revolution as destroying the natural environment. Of course, they are more than happy to enjoy the benefits of those innovations in their daily lives.
Many Greens embrace the Post-Modernist rejection of one material reality, logic, and reason. Those Greens embrace faith, emotion, and feeling.
The Green attitude towards Science is complex. They simultaneously oppose the intellectual foundations of modern science, while chanting “Trust the Science” when scientists agree with their agenda.
What should Eco-Modernists goals be?
I believe that Eco-Modernists should (and largely do) have the following goals:
Keep human material progress going.
Protect wild habitat.
Promote technological innovation in the domains of energy and agriculture that reduce the negative impact of human material progress on the natural environment.
Greens are opposed to #1 and #3 and are, surprisingly, not so enthusiastic about #2. Greens have become so obsessed with climate change that they have forgotten about protecting wild habitats.
If you consider yourself an Eco-Modernist, I would love to hear from you in the comments. What did I get wrong?
I have to agree with you. The modern “green” movement gets in its own way by opposing almost everything. I understand not wanting coal smokestacks, but when they also stand against Natural Gas, Nuclear, Hydro, and often times windmills (because birds), I have to question what the goal of the movement actually is.
As true stewards of life on Earth, we should celebrate human achievement, after all, we are animals on this planet too. Degrowthing our civilization, or freezing progress in place, increases the long-term existential risk to civilization and therefore life on Earth.
The fastest way to protect the environment, paradoxically, is to accelerate economic growth and human progress.
Enjoyed. Is this debate losing the forest from the trees? Or mixing metaphors, are we missing the elephant in the room?
Because we're not trying to eat our pie and have it too, we're trying to eat all the pies for all time. The social framing may appear as "save the polar bears" because that's how people relate to the world. But it's not an accurate framing.
The present economic system is stealing from the future to enrich a few present. The theft is of such magnitude we risk contagious societal collapse, at a minimum. Failure of basic systems and movement of a billion people in warlike conditions, will make the Capitalism unviable. Risk becomes too unpredictable, the economy de-levers, and monetary velocity descends back to the generational transfer rate behind walls or on tropical drone guarded islands.
And this entire scam operates under the cloud of time uncertainty, humanity's juvenile maturity, and limited attention span. But there is no doubt, from the clear and consistent experience of history and science, what is in store for us. And let's not Dues ex Machina that.
The problem is not material progress, because that is happening little in the developed world. The problem is a consumption for status society that damages our bodies, social relations, and societal decision making today. And that game is deliberately rigged with false prices, so that insiders in a monopolistic marketplace can capture the surplus from today and the next millennia.
Show me a society today that is working with the rational risk adjusted prices for energy, investing in long-term adaptive infrastructure, managing agriculture so those fields still work in 6 generations, building so the product can actually be insured, and not filling their reproductive organs up with micro-plastics. We have a long way to go. And it shouldn't be much of a debate unless some ideology or system is committed to stealing.