Against Band-Aid Environmentalism
My job sucks.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the work I get to do, because I know that there’s very little money in environmentalism (which means jobs like mine are few and far between), but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it. I don’t hate my job in the way that some people have to suffer through strenuous or meaningless labour, and I appreciate that I get to do work that’s in line with my personal values, but I hate that the entire existence of my job is predicated on ceaseless environmental destruction in the name of capitalism. My job only exists because of unending harm to our natural world in pursuit of profits.
Through my interactions with others outside of the environmental space, I get the sense that many people out there have a somewhat warped perspective on environmental work. It seems like people see it as some sort of noble or virtuous cause, but I think that many people fail to see how shitty it feels to be on the losing side of the battle for Earth’s future — for our children’s future — day after day after day.
Environmental non-governmental organizations (or ENGOs) like the organization I work for, aren’t out there solving the climate crisis, or preventing biodiversity loss on our own. I don’t go to work everyday and save X number of plants or wildlife from harm. I get the feeling that most people just assume ENGOs are working on these issues and all will be solved in due time, without any need to get involved or contribute to the struggle themselves. ENGOs help to ease the conscience of those unwilling to step up.
ENGOs only really exist to help slow things down, to paper over the cracks, to serve as just another band-aid solution to the contradictions of capitalism and the myth of infinite growth. We still play an incredibly important role, by serving as a voice for the environment — for the plants and the animals and the ecosystems who cannot speak for themselves — at the decision making table, but that’s only if we’re invited to participate. Our role is really just to make things a little slower and a little more difficult for corporations (and the governments who support them) from fucking things up.
And, we are only permitted to participate because it provides an excellent PR opportunity for corporations and/or governments who want to be perceived as benevolent by the public. Our existence is tolerated because it allows the people who are destroying the planet to donate a small fraction of their money to a charitable cause, which green-washes their shitty business practices and suddenly the public thinks that everything will be okay because Jeff Bezos pledged $1-billion to fighting climate change or whatever.
ENGOs don’t fix things on our own. We aren’t even enabled to try and fix things. We have no intrinsic power in the capitalist system. In many (or most) cases, ENGOs have no standing to get involved or even comment on these issues because we have no property rights that are being affected or infringed. Property rights are king. If a corporation owns or leases the rights to natural resources in a given area, such as mineral rights, water rights, or a forest harvest allocation, that’s all that matters, and there’s very little we can do to stop the destruction. Property rights enable environmental harm, and put the health of our planet at risk, for the sake of corporate profits. This is the same system of private property rights that enables corporations to own the means of production, thereby forcing the majority of us into working wage labour 40 (or more) hours per week, every single week, just to make ends meet.
There is no way to adequately address the climate crisis, or biodiversity loss, or rising wealth inequality, or any other massive societal crisis we are currently facing if we remain under the existing system of private property ownership and the capitalist mode of production. We need an immediate and rapid change in our relationship to each other and the natural world or nothing will change. I believe that the only genuine path forwards to fight for meaningful, societal-level changes for the benefit of the environment is to convince you — the people, the masses, the apathetic — that these issues matter, and they matter enough for you to get involved. The only way to make real change is for us to reach a critical mass of understanding, of frustration and outrage, and then channel all of that energy into a collective movement that forces our leaders to listen to our demands. We need to get organized, support one another, protect the vulnerable, get active, push back, create artwork, strike, protest, and reclaim the world that capital has taken from us.
