Now, to provide additional context, I just found out via Jonathon Colman from The Nature Conservancy that only 18% of survey respondents (I’m assuming all Americans) strongly believe that climate change is human-caused and harmful.

While I do hold my own opinion on the causes of climate change, that’s irrelevant for this discussion. The thing is that there seems to be a very small proportion of the population who believe in climate change (or at least, so would appear from the data shown). Now, the title of this post is associated with a paper by Schellenberger and Nordhaus titled “The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World”.

The gist of this paper (and surprisingly, the evidence presented by The Nature Conservancy) seems to suggest that American environmental NGOs have not had much success with galvanizing public opinion on climate change in the United States. If you read the work of Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap, they find increased support to the hypothesis that Conservatives have influenced public opinion on climate change (as a non-problem or a non-issue).

McCright, Aaron M., and Riley E. Dunlap. 2003. “Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement’s Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy.” Social Problems 50(3): 348-373.

But the thing is – regardless of whether it’s the ENGOs fault or the public’s fault (I don’t really want to blame anyone) – one of the main reasons why the Schellenberger and Nordhaus paper was so controversial is because it talked about “environmentalism being dead“. And I’m pretty sure that they intended for the paper to spark controversy (and make environmental NGOs try to work harder at educating the public about the need to adapt to climate change). That’s where I’m bringing the connection.

If you think about it (and as accurately said by the commentators on Rebecca’s site), the best way to spark a discussion about a topic is to say that X or Y is dead. Environmentalism is NOT dead. Much less here in Canada, and in Vancouver. For starters, Greenpeace started here! Environmental NGOs have a place and there is a need for them in the global environmental movement. The thing is, the Schellenberger and Nordhaus paper (as the other post mentioned by Rebecca) did serve to galvanize people, make them react to the issue and write about it.

Now, if we all did that about municipal and provincial politics in Vancouver and British Columbia, if we did that about climate change and other environmental issues in our own turf, THEN I think we would see a revival. And I’m hoping I’m contributing to this debate, and look forward to other’s contributions.

Related posts:

1. Climate change in Canada and Mexico
2. The politics of climate change
3. What the heck happened this past Canadian Federal Election?