Comment pubs.acs.org/est
Environmental Populism
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exaggerating environmental risks to inflate their own power and importance. To refute this notion, we need to remind people of the events of the past half-century. Starting in the 1970s, cynical efforts to render government ineffective combined with the failure of politicians to adapt to the disruptive aspects of globalization and technological advances have eroded the public’s faith in the ability of experts to protect them. Since the 1960s, industries have fought against pollution control by arguing that it would affect their bottom line. The argument never got old, even after the environment improved and the predicted economic calamities failed to materialize. If the public accepts the false premise that climate change and environmental protection must be ignored as we unleash our modern Titans of Industry on a mission of rebuilding the economy, we will scream past humanity’s safe operating spaces. Fifty volumes of Environmental Science & Technology stand as a testament to this assertion. Taking lead out of gasoline, installing catalytic converters, and enforcing fuel efficiency standards did not kill the US auto industry (a lack of ingenuity on the part of auto executives did). Scrubbers and air pollution trading schemes designed to protect our beloved lakes from acid rain and mercury pollution did not decimate West Virginia’s coalmines (new technologies that spurred a domestic natural gas boom did). And, replacement of stratospheric-ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons with less damaging refrigerants did not shutter the Carrier Corporation’s US factories (company executives seeking the economic advantages of the global labor market did). In the coming year, our community must launch a vigorous campaign to counter claims that environmental protection runs contrary to the will of the people. Our accusers will be led by executives and politicians who have advanced their careers at the expense of the people they will have sworn to protect. Their baseless claims that climate change is a foreign conspiracy cooked up by nation’s seeking to undermine the economy and that environmental protection is incompatible with economic growth will demonstrate that they are the ones who are out of touch with reality. As we make the case for a return to rationality, we need to step back from our love of the details that underlie our scholarship to communicate the simple message that we know how to solve our most pressing environmental problems and that those problems that we do not yet understand fully will become tractable through the continued efforts dedicated researchers. The environment is indeed a populist issue. It just needs a factual narrative and honest messengers.
opulism is a political ideology that has at its core the idea that the world’s problems can be blamed on out-of-touch elites. Populists often claim that seemingly complicated problems are amenable to simple solutions that are obvious to leaders who follow their instincts and ignore the advice of experts. Like its previous manifestations, the recent rise of populism in the world’s democracies reflects the anxieties of voters living through a period of rapid social change and economic uncertainty. The rejection of the status quo in November’s presidential election in the United States brings with it an expectation of a federal government that will abandon the progressive environmental policies of the past eight years. If this populist argument is not effectively refuted, environmental policy reversals like those expected in the United States could soon spread to other countries. Although the Trump administration will not take power until late January, nominations of climate change deniers and individuals hostile to environmental protection to high-ranking positions in the government portend radical changes. Requests for names of Department of Energy employees who have worked on climate issues provide a glimpse into the tactics that members of the incoming administration intend to employ as they seek to reshape the nation’s environmental agenda. Those who are curious about the coming onslaught should consider Canada’s experience under Stephen Harpera populist whose approach to the environment included rejection of treaties on climate change, evisceration of the nation’s environmental agencies, the creation of rules prohibiting government researchers from speaking to the media and a mandate that federal research proposals prioritize industry and economy over fundamental science. Or they can look to Australia’s right-wing government under Tony Abbott, where researchers at CSIROthe flagship national laboratorywere told to abandon climate research in lieu of a new mission to commercialize and license governmentdeveloped technologies. For those of us working to protect public health and the environment, rolling back environmental protection and restricting research that could reduce damage caused by pollution seem like unlikely causes for politicians who claim to serve the greater good. After all, polls consistently show strong, bipartisan support for government action to counteract threats posed by climate change, air pollution, and contaminated drinking water. The newly ascendant populists see environmental protection as impediment to economic growth and not a shared community value because it no longer incites strong emotional responses among their core constituencies. Over the past five decades, protection of the environment has evolved from a grassroots movement to another government function that is easily taken for granted by a public that has forgotten a time when industry claimed that smoggy skies and polluted waters were an unavoidable side effect of progress. As today’s experts from government, academia, and nongovernmental organizations explain our contemporary environmental problems and the policies required to solve them, it is easy for opportunistic politicians to dismiss them as elites who are © XXXX American Chemical Society
David Sedlak, Editor-in-Chief
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b06421 Environ. Sci. Technol. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Environmental Science & Technology
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Comment
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS. The author declares no competing financial interest.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b06421 Environ. Sci. Technol. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
