Post-environmentalism

Origins and Evolution of a Strange Idea

Bibliographic Data

ID4945494
AuthorsG Kallis (0000-0003-0688-9552, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, corresponding author), Shepherd Bli (0000-0002-6342-3540, University of Vermont), Sam Bli
Year2019
Volume26
Issue1
Publication date2019-01-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Ecology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1073-0451 • E-ISSN: 1073-0451
PublisherUniversity of Arizona (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2458/v26i1.23238
OpenAlexW2969896579
LanguageEN
Citations received16

The publication of the Ecomodernist Manifesto in 2015 marked a high point for post-environmentalism, a set of ideas that reject limits and instead advocate urbanization, industrialization, agricultural intensification, and nuclear power to protect the environment. Where, how, and why did post-environmentalism come about? Might it influence developments in the future? We trace the origins of post-environmentalism to the mid-2000s in the San Francisco Bay Area and show how it emerged as a response to perceived failures of U.S. environmentalism. Through a discourse analysis of key texts produced by the primary actors of post-environmentalism, namely the Oakland, California-based Breakthrough Institute and its cofounders Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, we show how the theory behind post-environmentalism mixes a deconstructionist trope familiar to political ecologists with a modernization core from liberal economics. We discuss the contradictions of post-environmentalist discourse and argue that despite its flaws, post-environmentalism can hold considerable sway because its politics align with powerful interests who benefit from arguing that accelerating capitalist modernization will save the environment. We conclude that political ecology has a much more nuanced take on the contradictions post-environmentalists stumble upon, disagreeing with those political ecologists who are choosing to ally with the agenda of the Manifesto

Environmental ethics · Environmentalism · Industrialisation · Localism · Manifesto · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · Law · Philosophy

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