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By Robert H. Nelson

Despite the current concerns that the environmental movement faces a moment of crisis -- the recent writings on the “death of environmentalism” and so forth -- it has been a great success in a number of respects. Since the 1960s, the environmental movement has created the political pressures that have resulted in significantly cleaner air and water, fewer toxic waste sites, more parks and wildernesses, and other environmental improvements. Millions of Americans contribute to environmental organizations that have become important players in American politics. Environmentalism has stood as a countering force to the virtual past worship of the idea of economic growth and progress as the salvation of the American nation.

Yet, environmentalism has failed in one significant respect that has much to do with its current crisis. The environmental movement has never produced a clear philosophical statement of its goals and purposes. There has been no Thomas Aquinas of environmentalism. Instead, it has been a moral and populist movement in American life.

The antecedents in American history can be found in movements such as the abolition movement and the prohibition movement. Mass campaigns to cleanse the republic of its evils are as American as apple pie. Like environmentalism, they typically are rooted in the Christian idea of a fallen world that is mired in corruption, and which must now be saved from its sinfulness. Like the abolition movement, this has often reflected an enduring powerful influence of Puritan thinking in American life. Donald Worster has written of American environmentalism as a secularization of old fashioned Protestant ascetic habits of thought – curbing the excesses of consumption and so forth. Indeed, I might go so far as to describe American environmentalism as a “Calvinism minus God.”

If environmentalism were simply concerned with cleaning up the air and water, its critique of American society would be less radical. Indeed, everyone agrees on the need to breath cleaner air; it then just a question of how far to go – at what point do the benefits of cleaning up the air no longer exceed the costs (and we can be sure that this will be well short of abolishing every element of air pollution altogether). But environmentalism has little to contribute to this discussion. Indeed, many environmentalists are repelled by the very idea of doing benefit-cost calculations, whatever the inevitability in practice may be.

Remaking Nature
Instead, environmentalism preaches a moral vision. At the core is the idea that human beings should reduce their impacts on nature. In an environmental utopia, everything would be “natural.” Aided by modern science, however, human beings have gone about remaking and reworking – “reengineering” – the natural world. But, as environmentalism now says, this is a grave mistake. Human beings have gone past their “natural” place in the world and are in effect playing God, asserting their own version of “the Creation.” In the Bible, God punishes those who challenge his authority, and so it will be once again – as environmentalism warns us of the future dangers that lie in store when human beings aim to remake the world according to their own designs.

It is one thing to offer a radical moral critique of the current world. It is another thing to offer a plan for the future. And it is at this point that the intellectual weaknesses of environmentalism become most evident. As noted, the environmental goal is to reduce human impacts on nature – for everyone to find a way to live in as “natural” way as possible. But what if the entire natural order has already been drastically altered by past human actions? A cessation now of human impact on nature then would merely create another product of past human actions. Rather than a natural condition of the past, it would be something entirely different that has never existed before. If the goal were to restore say the conditions of North American before the arrival of European civilization, this would instead require a new engineering exercise on a massive scale.

Even then it would not be natural. Environmentalism thus ends up in a quandary. It seeks “natural” outcomes but any realistic steps to get there would be “unnatural.” It is a contradiction that, I submit, is impossible to avoid. In my view the current problems of American environmentalism reflect the inability – indeed impossibility – over surmounting this tension. Instead, environmentalism has simply papered it over and ignored it, resorting to emotional appeals to the strong desire (in fact shared by most Americans) to stop “playing God."

Ecosystem Management
Intellectual contradictions, however, will eventually lead to policy failures. An example can be offered from the management of the national forests of the United States by the U.S. Forest Service. For many decades, “multiple-use” management was the reigning governing philosophy on these lands. Whatever the difficulties in implementation, there was at least a clarity of the goal – to maximize the total long run value of the human uses of the forests. Environmentalism rejected this as “hubris,” however, and successfully advocated a new regime of “ecosystem management.” Reflecting the moral roots of environmentalism, ecosystem management renounced the engineering of nature for maximum human benefit. Instead, the goal should be a “healthy” or “natural” forest, a forest showing “integrity” with respect to a new relationship of human beings and nature.

What this came down to in practice was that the Forest Service should cease to impose a human design on the future natural forests. The condition of the national forests should be that of about 1870, before European impacts became significant in the West where most of the forests are located. The Forest Service today has many historians and scientists at work seeking to identify this 1870 condition of the forests. But the national forests have already been significantly shaped by forest fire suppression and other previous human actions of the twentieth century. Even a decision today to withdraw all human presence from the national forests would not achieve a “natural” outcome. Indeed, an extremely active form of forest management – necessarily undertaken by human beings – would be necessary to erase the consequences of the many Forest Service management decisions of the past. The result, however, would then not be natural, other than in the sense of a Disneyland restoration of “nature.”

The effort, following the “guidance” of ecosystem management, to implement an intellectual contradiction has worked to demoralize and undermine the U.S. Forest Service (see my 2000 book, A Burning Issue: A Case for Abolishing the U.S. Forest Service). Short of the collective suicide of the human race, there can be no turning back from playing God. If there is a God, he or she has -- for whatever reason -- chosen to put a much greater power to play God in human hands. There is no stepping back now.

If environmentalism continues to insist on an impossible goal, it will forfeit its claim to be taken seriously. However repellent the idea may be to some people, it will be necessary to play God. Environmentalism in the future should focus on defining this task. After all, as the Bible tells us, human beings are made “in the image of God.” Perhaps God has recently extended the terms of the partnership, granting human beings wider God-like powers through the spread of scientific knowledge.

The crisis of environmentalism today is intellectual and theological. The most urgent task before the environmental movement at present is to work out a set of ideas – a new environmental bible – that explains how the new human power to alter the Creation – to play God -- can be accepted and wielded responsibly.

Robert H. Nelson is a professor of environmental policy at the School of Public Policy of the University of Maryland. He is the author most recently of Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond (Penn State Press, 2001).





	Conservationists should realize that environmental management means redesigning nature, no matter whether for resources or preservation By Robert H. Nelson Despite the current concerns that the environmental movement faces a moment of crisis -- the recent writings on the “death of environmentalism” and so forth -- it has been a great success in a number of respects. Since the 1960s, the environmental movement has created the political pressures that have resulted in significantly cleaner air and water, fewer toxic waste sites, more parks and wildernesses, and other environmental improvements. Millions of Americans contribute to environmental organizations that have become important players in American politics. Environmentalism has stood as a countering force to the virtual past worship of the idea of economic growth and progress as the salvation of the American nation. Yet, environmentalism has failed in one significant respect that has much to do with its current crisis. The environmental movement has never produced a clear philosophical statement of its goals and purposes. There has been no Thomas Aquinas of environmentalism. Instead, it has been a moral and populist movement in American life. The antecedents in American history can be found in movements such as the abolition movement and the prohibition movement. Mass campaigns to cleanse the republic of its evils are as American as apple pie. Like environmentalism, they typically are rooted in the Christian idea of a fallen world that is mired in corruption, and which must now be saved from its sinfulness. Like the abolition movement, this has often reflected an enduring powerful influence of Puritan thinking in American life. Donald Worster has written of American environmentalism as a secularization of old fashioned Protestant ascetic habits of thought – curbing the excesses of consumption and so forth. Indeed, I might go so far as to describe American environmentalism as a “Calvinism minus God.” If environmentalism were simply concerned with cleaning up the air and water, its critique of American society would be less radical. Indeed, everyone agrees on the need to breath cleaner air; it then just a question of how far to go – at what point do the benefits of cleaning up the air no longer exceed the costs (and we can be sure that this will be well short of abolishing every element of air pollution altogether). But environmentalism has little to contribute to this discussion. Indeed, many environmentalists are repelled by the very idea of doing benefit-cost calculations, whatever the inevitability in practice may be. Remaking Nature Instead, environmentalism preaches a moral vision. At the core is the idea that human beings should reduce their impacts on nature. In an environmental utopia, everything would be “natural.” Aided by modern science, however, human beings have gone about remaking and reworking – “reengineering” – the natural world. But, as environmentalism now says, this is a grave mistake. Human beings have gone past their “natural” place in the world and are in effect playing God, asserting their own version of “the Creation.” In the Bible, God punishes those who challenge his authority, and so it will be once again – as environmentalism warns us of the future dangers that lie in store when human beings aim to remake the world according to their own designs. It is one thing to offer a radical moral critique of the current world. It is another thing to offer a plan for the future. And it is at this point that the intellectual weaknesses of environmentalism become most evident. As noted, the environmental goal is to reduce human impacts on nature – for everyone to find a way to live in as “natural” way as possible. But what if the entire natural order has already been drastically altered by past human actions? A cessation now of human impact on nature then would merely create another product of past human actions. Rather than a natural condition of the past, it would be something entirely different that has never existed before. If the goal were to restore say the conditions of North American before the arrival of European civilization, this would instead require a new engineering exercise on a massive scale. Even then it would not be natural. Environmentalism thus ends up in a quandary. It seeks “natural” outcomes but any realistic steps to get there would be “unnatural.” It is a contradiction that, I submit, is impossible to avoid. In my view the current problems of American environmentalism reflect the inability – indeed impossibility – over surmounting this tension. Instead, environmentalism has simply papered it over and ignored it, resorting to emotional appeals to the strong desire (in fact shared by most Americans) to stop “playing God." Ecosystem Management Intellectual contradictions, however, will eventually lead to policy failures. An example can be offered from the management of the national forests of the United States by the U.S. Forest Service. For many decades, “multiple-use” management was the reigning governing philosophy on these lands. Whatever the difficulties in implementation, there was at least a clarity of the goal – to maximize the total long run value of the human uses of the forests. Environmentalism rejected this as “hubris,” however, and successfully advocated a new regime of “ecosystem management.” Reflecting the moral roots of environmentalism, ecosystem management renounced the engineering of nature for maximum human benefit. Instead, the goal should be a “healthy” or “natural” forest, a forest showing “integrity” with respect to a new relationship of human beings and nature. What this came down to in practice was that the Forest Service should cease to impose a human design on the future natural forests. The condition of the national forests should be that of about 1870, before European impacts became significant in the West where most of the forests are located. The Forest Service today has many historians and scientists at work seeking to identify this 1870 condition of the forests. But the national forests have already been significantly shaped by forest fire suppression and other previous human actions of the twentieth century. Even a decision today to withdraw all human presence from the national forests would not achieve a “natural” outcome. Indeed, an extremely active form of forest management – necessarily undertaken by human beings – would be necessary to erase the consequences of the many Forest Service management decisions of the past. The result, however, would then not be natural, other than in the sense of a Disneyland restoration of “nature.” The effort, following the “guidance” of ecosystem management, to implement an intellectual contradiction has worked to demoralize and undermine the U.S. Forest Service (see my 2000 book, A Burning Issue: A Case for Abolishing the U.S. Forest Service). Short of the collective suicide of the human race, there can be no turning back from playing God. If there is a God, he or she has -- for whatever reason -- chosen to put a much greater power to play God in human hands. There is no stepping back now. If environmentalism continues to insist on an impossible goal, it will forfeit its claim to be taken seriously. However repellent the idea may be to some people, it will be necessary to play God. Environmentalism in the future should focus on defining this task. After all, as the Bible tells us, human beings are made “in the image of God.” Perhaps God has recently extended the terms of the partnership, granting human beings wider God-like powers through the spread of scientific knowledge. The crisis of environmentalism today is intellectual and theological. The most urgent task before the environmental movement at present is to work out a set of ideas – a new environmental bible – that explains how the new human power to alter the Creation – to play God -- can be accepted and wielded responsibly. Robert H. Nelson is a professor of environmental policy at the School of Public Policy of the University of Maryland. He is the author most recently of Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond (Penn State Press, 2001).