Hope in a hopeless age: environmentalism’s crisis

Andrew McKinley ()
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Andrew McKinley: University of Toronto

Environment Systems and Decisions, 2008, vol. 28, issue 3, 319-326

Abstract: Abstract In this short essay it is argued that recent criticisms portraying the activist environmental movement as overly pessimistic are valid and that the communication of this pessimism to the public at large has been largely counterproductive to the objectives of environmentalists. It is argued that, in contrast to historic assumptions of a ‘progress paradigm’ that epitomized the widely held optimism of the past, the shock tactics and pessimistic media campaigns employed by the activist environmental movement, and the media that capitalizes upon those campaigns, have contributed to the creation of a figurative hopeless age. The key characterization of the hopeless age is the widely held assumption that the future will be worse than the present and that the lives of future generations will be diminished relative to our own. It is argued that the creation of this social-psychological phenomenon is counterproductive to the aims of the environmental movement and that the restoration of a collective vision and message of hope would be far more productive. Lastly, some reasons for a hopeful outlook are suggested.

Keywords: Death of environmentalism; Environmentalism; Environmental movement; Hope; Hope in a hopeless age; Progress paradigm; Shellenberger and Nordhaus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1007/s10669-008-9169-1

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