Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility [Hardcover]

Michael Shellenberger (Author), Ted Nordhaus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2007

Environmental insiders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus triggered a firestorm of controversy with their self-published essay, "The Death of Environmentalism." In it, they argued that global warming is far more complex than past pollution problems. American values have changed dramatically since the environmental movement's greatest victories in the 1960s, yet environmentalists keep fighting the same battles without realizing that the battle field has changed. Noting a connection between the failures of environmentalism and the failures of the entire left-leaning political agenda, the authors point the way toward an aspirational politics that will resonate with modern American values and be capable of tackling our most pressing challenges.

--This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the fall of 2004, two young environmentalists, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, triggered a firestorm of controversy with their essay, "The Death of Environmentalism." In it they argued that the politics that dealt with acid rain and smog can't deal with global warming. Society has changed, and our politics have not kept up. Environmentalism must die, they concluded, so that something new can be born. Now, three years later, Break Through delivers on the authors' promise to articulate a new politics for a new century, one focused on aspirations, not complaints, human possibility, not limits.

If environmentalists and progressives are to seize the moment offered by the collapse of the Bush presidency, they must break from the politics of limits, and grapple with some inconvenient truths of their own. The old pollution and conservation paradigms have failed. The nations that ratified the Kyoto protocol have seen their greenhouse gas emissions go up, not down. And tropical rain forest deforestation has accelerated.

What the new ecological crises demand is not that we constrain human power but unleash it. Overcoming global warming demands not pollution control but rather a new kind of economic development. We cannot tear down the old energy economy before building the new one. The invention of the Internet and microchips, the creation of the space program, the birth of the European Union--those breakthroughs were only made possible by big and bold investments in the future.

The era of small thinking is over, the authors claim. We must go beyond small-bore environmentalism and interest-group liberalism to create a politics focused as much on uncommon greatness as the common good.

Break Through offers more than policy prescriptions and demands more than casual consideration. With its challenge to conventional environmentalist, conservative, and progressive thought, and its proposal for a politics of possibility, Break Through will influence the political debate for years to come.

Questions for Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

Amazon.com: Your book grew out of an essay you wrote, "The Death of Environmentalism," that had an impact on the environmental discussion beyond even your own expectations, I assume. What did you argue in the essay, and why do you think it struck a chord?

Shellenberger and Nordhaus: We wrote the essay thinking that it would generate discussion among grantmakers and environmental insiders. We really didn't expect it to go viral and to be read by environmentalists and liberals all over the world. The essay was mostly about the failure of the environmental movement to make much progress on its agenda over the previous decade, but we could just as well have written it about any of the other liberal interest groups over that period. In the months after George W. Bush's reelection, a lot of liberals and environmentalists were ready to take a hard look at their political agenda, the Democratic Party, and the interest groups they supported. For that reason, our essay really did strike a chord.

In the essay, we argued that the great successes of the modern environmental movement in the '60s and '70s had laid the seeds of their failure in the early years of the 21st century. That they had built institutions filled with lawyers and scientists well suited to lobby policy makers who basically shared their world view. This worked well when liberals controlled the Congress and much of the federal bureaucracy, and when the politics of the time were more supportive of active government efforts to regulate the economy and clean up the environment. But as social values shifted through the '80s and '90s, as modern conservatism rose to power, and as the electorate became a good deal more skeptical of both government and environmentalists, these strategies, and the institutions that were created to prosecute them, foundered.

We argued that environmentalists needed to rethink the entire project, that these problems would not be solved simply with better PR and spin. Most especially, we argued that environmentalists needed to stop imagining that they were representing a thing called Nature or the Environment, separate from us (e.g. humans) in politics. It was for this reason that we argued that environmentalism had become a special interest, incapable of addressing large, complex, and global problems such as global warming.

Amazon.com: You wrote the essay three years ago. What have you learned from the response it got?

Shellenberger and Nordhaus: First and foremost, we learned that there was a generational component to the debate that we really hadn't been conscious of when we wrote the essay. Those who came of age in the '60s and '70s, when the environmental movement, along with the larger liberal political agenda, was ascendant, were most defensive and critical of the essay. Their identities as environmentalists, and their identification with the environmental politics and strategies of that era, were most resistant to the idea that environmentalism needed to die so that a larger, more expansive politics might be born. Younger generations were much more open to our thesis and excited to get to work creating a post environmental movement. This remains the case. As we travel the country speaking to audiences about Break Through, it is younger audience members who are most inspired by our message and most committed to building a movement and a politics that not only saves us from global warming apocalypse but is also equitable, free, and prosperous.

Amazon.com: On one hand, you argue that global warming is a "monumental" crisis that demands a response beyond the more limited (and limiting) environmental policies of the past. On the other, you acknowledge that, despite a great deal of press attention, "global warming" still ranks at the very bottom of voters' concerns. How do you confront a crisis that voters don't care about?

Shellenberger and Nordhaus: By getting it out of the global warming/environmental ghetto. We know that things like energy independence, getting off oil, getting out of the Middle East, and creating jobs and economic development in the new clean energy industries of the future are much higher priorities for most voters than capping carbon emissions or taxing dirty energy sources. So why not redefine our agenda as the solution to those problems? We can still cap carbon, but that needn't be at the top of the agenda that we communicate to voters. Making big investments to get off oil, making clean energy alternatives widely available and cheap, and creating millions of new jobs in clean energy industries is a winner with American voters and can carry the whole suite of policies that we need to address global warming.

Amazon.com: It seems that in the 2008 election, the possible candidates who have most identified themselves with environmental issues, like Al Gore and even Newt Gingrich, are sitting this one out, and it hasn't yet become a central issue among the declared candidates. Barack Obama did just give a major speech on the environment that has gotten some attention, though--do you think, despite voter apathy on the subject, that the issue could move the needle for a candidate?

Shellenberger and Nordhaus: We don't think that environmental issues, traditionally defined, including global warming, are likely to be make or break issues politically in this election. Voters simply have too many other pressing concerns, from health care, to energy prices, to the war in Iraq. The key, as noted above, is to reorient our agenda around those higher priority concerns. The good news is that all three leading Democratic candidates have made big commitment to large public investments to build the clean energy economy. Hilary Clinton has announced plans to invest $50 billion dollars, John Edwards recently announced a commitment to invest $13 billion annually, and just last week Barack Obama announced a $150 billion investment plan. The candidates read the same surveys we do. They know that there is extraordinary opportunity politically when we redefine our agenda around clean energy investment.

Amazon.com: I was fascinated by the section in your book in which you look favorably on Rick Warren's small-group evangelical movement [see The Purpose-Driven Life] as a possible model for providing belonging in our bowling-alone society, but you don't provide many specifics about what a similar environmental movement would look like. Do you have some ideas? Birdwatching? Boy Scouts?

Shellenberger and Nordhaus: We don't provide a lot of answers because we really don't have them. We wrote Break Through not to tell our readers what to do but rather as an invitation to join us in asking the right questions and experimenting with answers. For secular, liberal environmentalists, maybe we will find those "strong ties," through health clubs, or internet chat rooms, or mom's groups, or public service projects. What is key is that we understand that in a highly mobile and autonomous post-industrial society, we need to find easy ways for people to find connection and relationship with other people whom they may never have met, the literal equivalent of the evangelical service that is conducted several times every day, where people can come and go as they want, with child care and dry cleaning and whatever else liberals need to integrate that kind of regular activity into their everyday lives, and then we need to find ways to deepen those ties and connections, in ways that support and affirm secular values and personal autonomy. That is the starting point for creating a powerful secular political movement that is grounded in something more personal than direct mail campaigns, telephone appeals, and email alerts.

Amazon.com: Some skeptics of your technological optimism argue that the kinds of breakthroughs you expect as a result from massive investment just don't come easily in the energy sector. Solar power, nuclear energy, hydrogen fuel cells: they have all been around for decades without weaning us from oil and coal. What makes you think that the next decades will be different?

Shellenberger and Nordhaus: They are right in part; energy is a sector of the economy that has been particularly resistant to innovation. This is precisely the problem. It is why we are still dependant on energy sources that are 100 to 150 years old while virtually every other sector of the economy has transformed itself. This is why we believe that the faith that many environmentalists still hold that carbon regulations and taxes will drive sufficient private sector investment into energy markets to create the kind of innovation we need is unfounded. It is worth noting that virtually every alternative energy source we have--solar, wind, nuclear, and battery and fuel cell technologies for storage--resulted from public innovation and R&D, not private. The problem is that we haven't done enough of it, and we have done it inconsistently. After a brief couple of years in the late '70s, public funding for clean energy technologies dried up and has been on the decline ever since. The levels of technology investment in the energy sciences pales compared to the kinds of investment we make in the computer and bio-sciences. Skepticism about the potential to achieve the kinds of breakthroughs we need has been a self fulfilling prophecy. We don't make the investments we need to make, the sector fails to innovate, and then we conclude that it can't innovate. All of the barriers to innovation in the energy sector are arguments for a big commitment to public investment. Only the public sector can make the kind of long-term, common investments that we need to overcome those barriers to innovation.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Three years after their contentious, seminal essay "The Death of Environmentalism" advocated a radical reassessment of the global warming delimma, career environmental activists Nordhaus and Shellenberger present the book version, which mines post-materialist thought for solutions that fall somewhere between the death threats and band-aid solutions they say are currently masquerading as debate and progress. Arguing that preservation requires something "qualitatively different from limiting our contamination of nature," Nordhaus and Shellenberger contend that, as Americans, we must collectively sacrifice our standard of living to reverse the inevitable, a seemingly impossible but necessary task in a nation plagued by affluence envy and credit card debt. Referencing a wide array of current political and environmental work, Nordhaus and Shellenberger show how current pop-environmentalism (think Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth) is mired in a "pollution paradigm... profoundly inadequate for understanding and dealing with global warming." True progress, they contend, requires embracing a pragmatic approach to the constantly changing world, rather than a stubborn belief that "all things have an essential unchanging nature" which can be protected or restored. Though their plan to sell the largest middle class in history on "a new vision of prosperity" (defining wealth by "overall well-being") seems like a long shot, their big-picture ideas are important and intensely argued, making this a convincing, resonant and hopeful primer on "postenvironmentalism."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co; None edition (October 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618658254
• ISBN-13: 978-0618658251
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #142,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful obfuscated by misinformation, misrepresenation, general bashing, December 7, 2009

By 

West Coast Paddler (Pacific NW) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (Hardcover)

Edit 2010707: I just noticed a soon to be available book which may be complementary to my critique of S&N. If this review of 'Break Through' was useful to you, you might check out Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won't Save Us Or the Environment. Hopefully it will be a good read.

========


I gave the authors the benefit of the doubt when I borrowed this book because their initial essay "The Death of Environmentalism", which I read a couple of years back, generated responses from significant people. While this book wasn't a total waste of time for me to read (love it or hate it, it is a part of the literature), neither did it actually provide a useful way forward, in my opinion. For those folks who don't consider themselves environmentally informed, it's likely a waste of time and will leave you with a wrong impression of the contributions and writings of others. Too much of this book is spent trying to show off their own ideas by belittling others. Nonetheless, the authors do go out of their way to show how learned they are by quoting from everyone with a high-sounding name.

The general tone of the book reminds me of Elmer Fudd. Like the arch-nemesis of talking bunnies the world over, the authors have trouble seeing straight at times while tending to shoot first and aim second. Occasionally they hit a useful target but too often miss wildly, sometimes working feverishly to cover their tracks by misrepresenting the work of others. Examples are found below. The arguments are poorly presented and sometimes you gotta wonder if you too can get some of whatever it is that they're smoking!

This review will take specific examples from the text and comment on them.

The primary point I took away is that S&N believe that, without actually stating whether or not they believe that such limits exist, nature advocacy should get away from any notion of limits.

"Few things have hampered environmentalism more than its longstanding position that limits to growth are the remedy for ecological crises [sic]. We argue for an explicitly pro-growth agenda that defines the kind of prosperity we believe is necessary to improve the quality of human life and to overcome ecological crises." p.15.

First, even if the phrase made sense, I don't recall anyone stating that "limits to growth are the remedy for ecological crises". If there are limits to growth they simply mean that there is a limit to the biophysical capacity of the planet to (re)generate natural capital that humanity (and other species) can consume or a limit to the waste products that can be assimilated. They are not a remedy for, or a cause of, anything; they just are (and as soon as one acknowledges there is a limited amount of anything on the planet -- fish, water, sunshine, arrogant authors -- then you acknowledge that such limits exist. Perhaps there is a case to be made for the existence of unlimited arrogance).

They further state, in a delightful example of their periodic immodest assertions, that:

"Many environmentalists and environmental justice advocates argue that economic growth and development are not inconsistent with sustainability and environmental health, and in this they are correct." p.88

The authors don't provide a list of 100, 20 or even 1 of these advocates and I would argue that there are brighter minds than theirs working on the (in)capacity of the planet for unlimited economic growth (e.g. Daly, Rees) so to state that "they are correct" without evidence, is rather self-important and without factual basis. There are some others (McDonough and Braungart, Cradle to Cradle) who also profess a similar growth-forever mantra made "sustainable" by eliminating the concept of waste and closing the loop on the production/waste cycle (though even M&B don't acknowledge that the closed loop in an ever-increasing economy -- i.e. more and more consumer goods -- will require ever more resources to be added).


S&N show us their philosophical side as well, quoting de Tocqueville and, elsewhere, philosophizing on pollution:

"...the overreliance of environmentalists on visual evidence of humans' degradation of nature is a consequence of the environmentalists interpretive framework; principally, the idea of pollution. Consider that the meaning of the word pollution depends on the concept of nature as pure, harmonious, and separate from humans. Pollution is this kind of contamination, or violation,, of nature, by humans. Similarly, human development is an encroachment upon nature. These are not simply analytical categories but moral ones as well. Nature has been unjustly violated by mankind." p.25

"Interpretive framework"? If we just interpreted things differently there would be no "pollution"? Maybe you get a different meaning to their comments. It seems clear to me that artificial chemicals in nature, for example, are pollutants which destroy entire ecosystems, large and small. I write this off to the authors just trying to sound important. Every species that I know of generates waste products; the thing is, over the course of billions of years of evolution nature has found ways to turn that waste into food for another process or organism. Humans, however, are both generating "known" waste products (e.g. CO2) in amounts greatly exceeding the planet's assimilative capacity, as well as creating new compounds that nature has never before had to evolve to make use of, so who knows what nature will do with these compounds, toxic and otherwise.

Then there is this gem:

"Just as prosperity tends to bring out the best of human nature, poverty and collapse tend to bring out the worst." p.35

Timely, given that that the banking crisis happened so recently, certainly an example of prosperity bringing out the best of human nature. A mind-boggling over-simplification indicative of the level of intellectual rigor throughout.

I'll close with a glaring misrepresentation (it can't have been accidental) from about the mid-point in the book, where S&N quote from Jared Diamond's book, Collapse. In the referenced section of "Collapse" Diamond discusses the likelihood of the planet's ability to support a western lifestyle of mass consumption for everyone globally:

"Diamond's tragic narrative leads him to some disturbing political conclusions.
[quoting Diamond]
People in the third world aspire to First World living standards...Third World citizens are encouraged to that aspiration bu First World and United Nations development agencies, which hold oput to them the prospect of achieving their dream if they will only adopt the right policies, like balancing their budgets, investing in education and infrastructure, and so on. But no one at the U.N. or in the First World governments is willing to acknowledge the dream's impossibility: the sustainability of a world in which the Third World's large population were to reach and maintian current First World living standards.
[end quote Diamond]
"Diamond believes he is being courageous in delivering this alleged truth. But how courageous is it for Diamond to insist that the poorest people on earth should not aspire to the same standard that he himself enjoys?" p.148

Well, let's pull back the camera a little for a little more context.

In fact, Diamond states, a couple of lines later (which S&N "conveniently" DON'T include and which belies the intent they attribute to Diamond of denying to others what he himself has):

[myself quoting from Collapse] "What will happen when it finally dawns on all these people in the Third World that First World standards are unreachable for them and that the First World refuses to abandon those standards for itself?"
[end quote]

It is that last phrase that illuminates as fraud S&N's stated conclusion. Rather than the advocating the continuation of some sort of colonial serfdom for the Third World as S&N dishonestly insinuate, Diamond is arguing for an equitable sharing of planetary resources, recognizing that the resource stash is, yes, limited.

A final comment on the limits "thang."

The authors advocate a magical motivational transformation amongst the world's populace. They assert an elixir which will serve two purposes. First, it must convince the populace that there is a problem... um... no problem...

Why would anyone think to change their lifestyles in response to climate change, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, exaltations from S&N, or simply because it's Saturday and you have nothing better to do unless they saw two things: first, there must be personal reasons (financial, moral, imperilment of self or loved one, etc.) for not continuing progress down the current path. Second, there has to be a "better" alternative.

The first implies that people must realize that something is out of whack and needs fixing. The second implies a comparison; "better" is not an absolute, it is a judgement (i.e. values-based; normative) based on a comparison between alternatives. It seems to me one has to acknowledge the elephant before one can strategize on how to make it go away or why it is even a concern let alone provide any visions of a future "Utopia".

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Break Through changed my thinking unexpectedly, October 28, 2007

By 

Felix (Silicon Valley) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (Hardcover)

This book draws on themes invoked by such thought leaders as architect/designer William McDonough, journalist Thomas Friedman and venture capitalist John Doerr about inspiring human creativity and finding hope in human aspirations and nature's abundance -- and points us to a strategic vision for the next decades.

I'm the founder of The California Cars Initiative -- CalCars.org -- promoting plug-in hybrids. See a full review I posted to CalCars-News at http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/863.html .

WAYS THIS BOOK HELPED CHANGE MY THINKING
* I've been mystified about people who didn't want to see "An Inconvenient Truth." Even as I agreed with many others that this powerful and effective movie came up short in offering solutions, I still felt frustrated by those who stayed away because they couldn't face the "doom and gloom" message. By drawing on their academic backgrounds, the authors convincingly show how ear and anxiety can de-motivate and disempower many people. Break Through starts off with a contrasting story -- about Martin Luther King's 1963 Lincoln Memorial speech, which began as "I have a nightmare" -- then moved to "I have a dream."
* Until provoked to think more deeply, I felt those whose response to climate crisis was to conclude that instead of solutions we need adaptation as missing the point. Talk about "preparedness" seemed like a capitulation -- or an impulse to find a way to make money from misery. Now I see that including these people, who want to get involved rather than deny the problem, at least puts them on a continuum of action.
* The authors say that to reduce CO2 globally, you have to reduce global per capita CO2 -- that makes sense. But then they take the mental leap to say that will require working to equalize living standards globally. That's an inconceivably large challenge -- but thinking about it this way could irrevocably transform our global strategies.
* I'm also grateful for a few more catchy phrases: we've long heard "the iron age didn't end because we ran out of iron." To that we can now add: "We did not invent the Internet by taxing telegraphs nor the personal computer by limiting typewriters."

LEST YOU THINK I'M ONE-SIDED
* The book has an entire section that's highly abstract and philosophical ... some will appreciate it, some will skip over it!
* The authors' case may at times be overstated: national environmental organizations are evolving their approaches and presenting positive visions.
* The phrase "Break Through" may be problematic. The authors use it as a two-word verb: to get beyond existing social, political and technical limitations. More commonly, as a one-word noun, it implies a need to find and develop entirely new technologies and energy sources. Yet our untapped opportunities in efficiency and conservation say otherwise. Cost-effective solutions are within sight -- for instance, see http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/860.html about how Sunpower's solar photovoltaics and Ausra's solar thermal power generation could soon be cost-competitive with new natural gas and coal plants. From those who talk about breakthroughs, we hear less about the third D in RD&D -- Research, Development and Deployment. PHEVs and today's low- and zero-carbon energy technologies need a level playing field for incentives, volume production and commercialization. We're inclined to reserve the term breakthrough for developing feasible carbon capture and sequestration or the way-out "geoengineering" schemes that advocates hope could help save us if we are unable to make a rapid transition to low-carbon sustainable technologies.
* What we most appreciate about the book and the website http://www.thebreakthrough.org is that they are leading to an expanded dialogue and very healthy debates.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reshape the world, December 26, 2007

By 

Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (Hardcover)

"Break Through" by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger is a stirring manifesto for the postenvironmentalist movement. With remarkable erudition, maturity and precision, the two veteran environmentalists condemn the failed politics of limits to the dustbin of history but go on to sketch out a bold new politics of possibility. Brilliantly conceived and passionately written, this inspiring work helps us visualize how humanity might yet achieve greatness on earth.

Mr. Nordhaus and Mr. Shellenberger remind us that post war prosperity created the postmaterialist conditions that allowed the social and environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s to flourish. However, the authors fault the narrowly-focused, complaint-based liberalism of today for its inability to reverse the deteriorating economic conditions that are the root cause for a host of environmental ills. The authors do not shy from taking aim at some of the environmental movement's most esteemed spokespeople including Robert Bullard, Al Gore and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and fault them for deploying unproductive disaster discourses to promote a largely uninspiring and outmoded pollution control agenda.

Pointing to the success of mega churches in creating community out of social and economic anxiety, the authors contend that a postenvironmentalist movement that empowers individuals to imagine and create change is required to tackle the enormous problem of global warming; in fact, they believe that only a dramatic program on the scale of the Apollo project can inspire America's increasingly individualistic and creative citizens to participate in developing a new, renewable-energy based economy and thereby reshape the world. Rewriting an exceedingly dull speech by Tony Blair on the topic of global warming in the style of Winston Churchill, the authors demonstrate how postenvironmentalists might rouse the public to face down despair and accept the challenge to do great things in service to themselves and future generations.

I highly recommend this exceptional book to everyone.