Environmental Advocacy in the Obama Years

Matthew C Nisbet

Working Paper from Harvard University OpenScholar

Abstract: In the latter years of Barack Obama?s presidency, the effort to mobilize public opinion and grassroots activism on climate change has led to a broader shift in environmental politics, as environmental organizations and their allies devote ever greater resources to shaping the outcome of elections, framing debates in stark moral terms, and melding innovative Internet-based strategies with traditional face-to-face field organizing. Yet, on the road to meaningfully dealing with climate change, this new brand of pressure politics as practiced by 350.org, NextGenClimate, and their allies among national environmental groups is not without its potential trade-offs, flaws and weaknesses. Blocking the Keystone XL oil pipeline and divesting from fossil fuel companies make for potent symbolic goals, but may detract from more important goals such as the passage of newfederal rules limiting emissions from coal fired power plants, and promoting government investment in a broad range of cleaner, more efficient energy technologies. Evidence also suggests that the strategies that environmental groups and climate advocates have used to mobilize a progressive base of voters and donors, may in fact be only strengthening political polarization, turning off core constituencies, dividing moderate and liberal Democrats, and promoting broader public disgust with ?Washington? and government

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