Marking 20 years
of bold journalism,
reader supported.
Views

What Enviros Can Learn from Bjorn Lomborg

The so-called 'skeptical environmentalist' is coming to B.C. His appeal, if not his science, must be taken seriously.

Matt Price 21 Jan 2005TheTyee.ca
image atom

First off, let me say that I have nothing against Bjorn Lomborg as a person. I've never met the man.

But, thanks to the Fraser Institute soon this "sceptical environmentalist" will be all over our airwaves, pushing his message that environmentalists are misguided in our focus on questionable (by him) issues such as climate change, when we should instead be focusing on real problems like global poverty.

What's interesting about this scenario is the nature of the Catch-22 that it presents for environmentalists: respond, and we prove his point by engaging in questions about our very reason for being; but don't respond, and we let his message go unchallenged.

Personally, I think the only way out of this debate is, in fact, for environmentalists to question our core assumptions. We do not need to question whether our facts are right - the vast majority of scientists do not support Lomborg and people like him. But we do need to question how we situate these facts in doing our work.

Hunger for hope

In finding a way out of Lomborg's Catch-22, we can learn valuable lessons about how to be better at what we do. Maybe he can do us a favour.

Lomborg is interesting to the media and the public for one main reason: as a powerful symbol of a subtle and effective anti-environmentalist frame.

We'll get to what a 'frame' is below, but first, Lomborg himself makes a powerful symbol because of who he claims to be. Like our homeboy Patrick Moore, he lays claim to the label of "environmentalist," but he's a better symbol than Moore partly because he is fresh-faced, vegetarian, and rides a bike.

But, the main reason he's more effective is that Lomborg speaks about Hope and helping people in the Third World, rather than engaging in Moore's mean-spirited attacks on environmentalists themselves. He invokes a values frame that people identify with - who doesn't want to help the poor? And, by rounding out his frame as either helping the poor or addressing climate change, he invites people to take his side against environmentalists and policy makers who may agree with us.

This cuts to the heart of a deep problem for the environmental community - that over the past decades we have framed ourselves mainly as anti-bad stuff (pollution, sprawl, clearcutting) and we are therefore vulnerable to the charge that we are forever obstructionist - getting in the way of ordinary people just trying to get by.

'Death of environmentalism'

There's a raging debate in the U.S. following George W. Bush's re-election about how progressives there have lost the way, and lost the public. The darling of the U.S. left is currently George Lakoff, a semiotics professor who has shown how U.S. Republicans have engineered a 40-year project to frame their agenda with positive values popular with U.S. voters.

Part of this debate is whether there needs to be a "death of environmentalism," not in the sense of giving up on wanting clean energy, air, water, and land, but rather in the sense of how we campaign for those things.

Rather than casting things narrowly and technically as environmental issues - inviting the Lomborgs of the world to both question your assumptions and to cast you as anti-progress - the argument runs that we need to build a compelling vision of the future where people want clean energy air, water, and land because these things are essential for jobs, security, and healthy communities. The vision would be for things, rather than against them, and seeking to speak to people's everyday values, rather than to technical fixes.

Here in Canada, progressives are not yet as badly off as our colleagues in the U.S., despite the best efforts of bodies like the Fraser Institute. But, we are complacent at our great peril. It's time for the B.C. and Canadian environmental community to come together with others to define and participate in a vision that takes the opportunity away from the Lomborgs to frame us as anti-progress and anti-people.

Then, the next time he comes to town, the media will find him as uninteresting as he is wrong.


Matt Price is the Coordinator of the Conservation Voters of BC.


   [Tyee]

  • Share:

Facts matter. Get The Tyee's in-depth journalism delivered to your inbox for free

Tyee Commenting Guidelines

Comments that violate guidelines risk being deleted, and violations may result in a temporary or permanent user ban. Maintain the spirit of good conversation to stay in the discussion.
*Please note The Tyee is not a forum for spreading misinformation about COVID-19, denying its existence or minimizing its risk to public health.

Do:

  • Be thoughtful about how your words may affect the communities you are addressing. Language matters
  • Challenge arguments, not commenters
  • Flag trolls and guideline violations
  • Treat all with respect and curiosity, learn from differences of opinion
  • Verify facts, debunk rumours, point out logical fallacies
  • Add context and background
  • Note typos and reporting blind spots
  • Stay on topic

Do not:

  • Use sexist, classist, racist, homophobic or transphobic language
  • Ridicule, misgender, bully, threaten, name call, troll or wish harm on others
  • Personally attack authors or contributors
  • Spread misinformation or perpetuate conspiracies
  • Libel, defame or publish falsehoods
  • Attempt to guess other commenters’ real-life identities
  • Post links without providing context

LATEST STORIES

The Barometer

Do You Think Naheed Nenshi Will Win the Alberta NDP Leadership Race?

Take this week's poll