We are living in strange times. Just last month, the UK Labour government’s transport minister, Heidi Alexander, announced plans for airport expansion, saying “I’m not a flight-shaming eco-warrior”. This came as something of a surprise to a shell-shocked audience of aviation industry heavyweights.
It’s as if British politicians had never warned about the environmental dangers of flying. Yet Ed Miliband, Labour’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, once said that “there are going to have to be constraints” on flying. The Labour Party’s Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has regularly demanded restrictions on airports saying “Aviation must be making the biggest changes”. Eco-leftie George Monbiot once said that flying was as “unacceptable as child abuse”.
We were all bemused when Donald Trump called Zelensky a dictator one day and had no memory of saying it one week later, but something similar is going on with environmental commitments. One day, national leaders and corporate executives are condemning ordinary people’s “carbon habit” for causing global warming; the next day, they act as if they never said anything of the sort. It’s proof, if it were needed, that environmentalists still use fossil fuels to gaslight society.
One day, national leaders and corporate executives are condemning ordinary people’s “carbon habit” for causing global warming; the next day, they act as if they never said anything of the sort.
In truth, for more than a decade, successive governments have been prioritizing climate goals over unrestricted air travel, but almost overnight laws are being introduced to block environmental protestors from disrupting major infrastructure projects. At a stroke, the Labour Party has unveiled the possibility of a new runway at Gatwick airport. Rachel Reeves told the Labour Party conference in 2021 that she would be “Britain’s first green chancellor”. Three years later she is advocating for a third runway at Heathrow.
This is all part of a broader shift in the language and posturing on the environment. Oil giant BP has announced a “fundamental reset of its strategy” , by which they mean that they are returning to prioritized investment in fossil fuels instead of continuing their 20-year dalliance with green energy. Companies like Arcelor Mittel, JPMorgan, Mercedes-Benz, etc. are dropping their commitment to ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) pledges. Blackrock, the world’s biggest asset management company, has quit the industry’s Net Zero climate organization. America’s scientists have been removed from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The list of individuals, corporations, political parties, and national governments stepping back from climate commitments since Trump’s election victory is remarkable. What’s going on?
The list of individuals, corporations, political parties, and national governments stepping back from climate commitments since Trump’s election victory is remarkable. What’s going on?
It’s 21 years since Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger wrote an article titled ‘The Death of Environmentalism’. Nordhaus and Shellenberger came to praise environmentalism, not to bury it, arguing that environmental politics had to move on from the hairshirt, technical fix, grassroots movement of the 70s, and develop an environmental culture war. Environmental “values” had to become mainstream. They quoted Susan Clark, Executive Director of the Columbia Foundation, insisting that “it’s a human problem to do with how we organize our society. The problem is not external to us; it’s us”.
Because environmentalists failed to recognize the effects of constantly chastizing ordinary people’s lifestyle choices, and imposing unwanted restrictions on them, it was hardly surprising that environmental politics began to lose its appeal. Even though environmentalism was everywhere, it was never popular. The question Nordhaus and Shellenberger posed was “how we can simultaneously be ‘winning on the issues’ and losing so badly politically?”. In other words, why does everyone buy into the eco-message—the dangers of global warming, of carbon emissions, of existential crises—and yet not vote for the messenger?
The question Nordhaus and Shellenberger posed 21 years ago was: why does everyone buy into the eco-message—the dangers of global warming, of carbon emissions, of existential crises—and yet not vote for the messenger?
Nordhaus’s and Shellenberger’s ‘The Death of Environmentalism’ was little more than a revivalist tract aiming to reframe the debate so that environmentalists could start winning. It hasn’t really worked. Fast forward to today, and The Guardian leads with a story on how the “German election shows how far the green wave has receded in Europe”. Shellenberger, at least, has become more of a libertarian on these matters, but let’s look at a number of recent events that have conspired to scupper the onward march of environmental politics, and to open up the debate for all of us.
The Trump-Musk-DOGE effect has made it okay to be skeptical about the Net Zero issue, about extreme climate claims and, of course, about the immense cost of greening the economy. In the UK, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has claimed that Net Zero would impose an additional debt of around 10 per cent of GDP by 2040; for France it was nearer 25%. McKinsey says that the global economy would need to spend an additional $3.5 trillion every year to hit the targets by 2050. Given the parlous state of the world’s economy, it takes a special kind of lunatic to argue for even more debt and consumer pain. Of course, the UK Green Party tends to fill that role with its advocacy for “degrowth”, economic restraint and curbs on consumption, mobility and progress.
Since its inception, the Green movement has always been exasperated that its message isn’t getting enough air-time, or is not being given the respect it deserves. Anyone living in the real world knows that there is not a day that passes without some media reference to the climate, to sea-levels, to man-made global warming, and hardly any catastrophic event that isn’t cited as evidence of humanity’s guilt. Turtles are dying because you threw a plastic bag away; the Maldives are sinking because you drove to work instead of riding your bike. It never rang true—predominantly because it is nonsense to establish a direct causation between drinking from plastic straws and the sinking of an archipelago—but also because it is not very appealing to listen to the Green elites dictating how the little people should suck it up (with paper, not plastic straws).
With their self-regarding contempt for others, the Greens have become ever more isolated from reality. Indeed, the good old days of environmental activism—when protestors campaigned against roads or pollution—are a distant memory. Nowadays, Green activism more resembles a cult, with followers meeting in marginalized cells to indulge in philistine stunts that most ordinary people resent. As if to further emphasize their separation from the everyday world, mainstream Green spokespersons are completely obsessed with LGBTIQA+ activism, or are spending their days chanting for Gaza. Indeed, Greta Thunberg herself has effortlessly morphed into a keffiyeh-wearing spokesperson for the “Palestinian cause”. Environmentalism is passé. Saving the planet, it seems, was yesterday’s battle.
Nowadays, Green activism more resembles a cult, with followers meeting in marginalized cells to indulge in philistine stunts that most ordinary people resent.
But it is predominantly J.D. Vance’s speech last month that has changed the conversation. Trump’s “Drill, Baby, Drill” has had a receptive, populist audience, but Vance’s statement that America would not sign up to the Paris Accords and would actively pursue a “pro-growth” agenda, is what really woke people up. Vance has revealed that the Environmentalist Emperor had no clothes. With such forthright talk, he has exposed the dangers of environmentalism’s extortionate costs and its restrictions on industry. He casually noted that a government’s priority ought actually be to make its population’s lives better, not worse. His speech cut through. Not just in America, but pretty much everywhere. For people who are just-about-managing, and for those who are attracted to populism and cynical about eco-austerity, Net Zero orthodoxies have increasingly lacked appeal. And now worldwide, the green scales are falling from corporate, business and political eyes.
J.D. Vance has revealed that the Environmentalist Emperor had no clothes.
Let’s not fool ourselves—environmentalism retains a significant foothold in global affairs; from COP to the United Nations, from WHO to national governments, from NGOs to corporations, from schools to university departments. This is not an ideology that will gracefully accept defeat. Even in America, lobbyists are currently preparing legal challenges to their imminent demise. But the good news is that we now have breathing space to argue for growth, for social and infrastructural improvements, for more homes, roads and jobs, for more consumer goods and travel opportunities. Everything that would once invite the criticism that we were selfishly destroying the planet is now released from that absurdist charge. Maybe for a fleeting moment, environmental skeptics and critics are on the front foot again. For once, the “deniers” are those who are illegitimately denying human progress and a better life for all. Instead of accepting the crumbs from the environmentalists’ table, let’s not miss this opportunity —while it lasts—to demand, create, and aspire to much, much more.
