What We Say – What We Do

An interesting juxtaposition of stories in the news this week: at the same time that the EPA released draft regulations designed to make New Source Review “work better” (yes, the usual critics note this would result in less aggressive enforcement and more emissions from aging utility plants), a Harris poll was released this week reporting nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults agree that protecting the environment is important and standards cannot be too high.

I’m not going to recite the statistics from the poll, because it just doesn’t hold my interest that much. I stopped paying attention to the survey the moment I observed there were no questions asking people what they would change in their lives to help protect the environment. If those questions were asked, you might find there is little in their lives that Americans would be willing to change or forego, regardless how they say that environmental protection is important to them. Yes, I know that SUV sales are down. It’s about time; why were we buying them at all?

Writings such as “The Death of Environmentalism” chronicle this vast disconnect between our professed concerns about impact to the environment and our own role in creating those impacts. If three quarters of adult Americans feel that environmental protection is important, what is it that marginalizes the environmental movement? Some of it is the movement’s fault, as noted by Shellenberger and Nordhaus. Some of it’s a lack of environmental literacy – being unable to link the actions in our daily lives to occurrences such as global warming, resource depletion, mobidity and mortality from air pollution. But, there’s probably a lot of good old fashioned willingness to disbelieve:

How do you stop such suicidal behavior? Probably not by persuasion or exhortation. People change what they are doing when circumstances compel them to and not before. The American public barely even thinks about these things.

A little harsh (that’s James Howard Kunstler for you), but look at things this way; how much of an effect are you having when switching from a Yukon Denali to a Prius, if you are still commuting 500 miles a week to and from work?