Dror,
I believe you raised some important points, especially on the issue of "perpetuating visions of imminent apocalypse." I just don't see this as a right wing nut case issue, though you're right, certain policy wonks on the far right do seem more interested in fanning fears to encourage gridlock (particularly in the carbon debate, where the right has been outrageously 'head in the sand.)
An equal danger, however, and one which only empowers the loony right, is the line promoted by the fringe of the left (by that I would say Earth First, Greenpeace, EWG, and NRDC, but not for example EDF) that sustainable business development is easy if it wasn't for the greedy dull heads who run Corporate World. We need a much more nuanced view of what growth and consumption entails. It's messy, it's complicated, and there are no easy fixes. It means reexamining tired paradigms, such as the left litmus rejection of nuclear energy, which thankfully liberal scientists are beginning to make headway on changing this by lobbying the simplistic anti-science left (again, read Greenpeace, EWG, NRDC, etc.).
The key sentiment I get from your post--which if I have accurately identified it--is that the world is literally bubbling with fantastic new ideas on how to confront our environmental challenges. Some of these ideas are futuristic and will prove wrong and could even lead to unintended consequences, but that's expected during periods of intellectual ferment, which we appear to be facing on the environmental front. There are a tremendous number of corporate-NGO partnerships, many of which also include governments. I know in working with my clients, which include some international private equity firms, they are deathly concerned about resource constraints and carbon challenges (as well as social/governance changes.) Since they take on investments for 5-10 years, they can't be quarter-by-quarter short term thinkers. Plus, their feet are being held to the fire by activist public pension funds, from Calpers to social funds in Europe, all of whom are demanding much more refined accountability in the ESG area when businesses are acquired and afterwards, as they are being managed with hopes to turn them out years down the road as public companies, and hopefully with much higher valuations.
So, it's not all bleak. We all need to be vigilant that the right apologists and the left ant-corporate/anti-science enviro-romantics don't set the parameters of the dialectic.
Jon Entine | 513.319.8388
On Jun 7, 2010, at Jun 7, 2010 8:21 AM, Dror Etzion wrote:
I am surprised at the claim that critical thinking and sound policy ideas are in short supply. Dozens of excellent ideas have been floated over the past decades ranging from the straightforward (halting government subsidization of mineral and mining exploration) to the more profound and interesting (halting the taxation of good things like income and employment and instead taxing the bad stuff like waste and pollution, attributable to Pigou nearly a century ago). There is no shortage of sound thinking on this matter ranging from Nicholas Stern to various UN organizations, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE), the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) and perhaps even the World People's Conference on Climate Change if you really want to go out on a limb.
In my mind the problem is more political than anything else. What we appear to have is a group of "free-market" thinkers that paralyze, wittingly or not, any attempt to escape the gridlock of our current economic paradigms, often by projecting fear of future scenarios, e.g. the horror of oil prices tripling. The human species is notoriously bad at predicting any type of future technological and economic trajectories, (just think Malthus, or the unexpectedness of the PC revolution), and there is really no reason to expect that we can better predict the future this time around. It is abundantly clear that major paradigmatic change is necessary, that there are a panoply of fantastic ideas out there, but it is also just as evident that some people and corporations may not benefit as much from these changes as they would by clinging to the status quo. Perpetuating visions of imminent apocalypse as a result of attempting change, to me, appears like toeing the party line of big-business. Think tanks which continue to promote obstructionist agendas, I find, are particularly dual-faced, by distancing themselves so much from their libertarian roots, making it very likely that they are nothing more than hollow mouthpieces for corporate interests, which, unsurprisingly, bankroll their operations, in many instances.
In my view, I think it is important for all of us who care about organizations and the environment to rally TOGETHER around our passion for living in an unsullied and healthy world. Whether you are a testosterone-addled critical thinker, an estrogen rich proponent of managerial spirituality, or anything in between, I feel we should all be doing our damnedest to make our progressive, constructive views known and influential, while also acknowledging that people in our camp who have other beliefs on how our goals can best be attained should be given a helping hand and supported continuously in their well-meaning efforts, rather than criticized. As many in the environmental movement have noted, what we need now is not a "silver bullet" to magically solve the environmental crisis, but rather "silver buckshot" – a variety of approaches that hopefully, in sum, will do enough to shift us to a better path. There is no point in taking aim at people whose approach is different from our own, as long as it is clear that their heart is in the right place.
Finally, on a personal note, I am particularly perplexed at the sense of academic self-loathing coming through in some posts. Maybe it's just me, but I don't quite get why there is a place for such negativity on an AoM listserve. I am sure we are all proud to be academics, and see ourselves as a valuable and vibrant community that provides knowledge and independent thinking to society, and which has been the bedrock of human development over the past millennium. And please, no more soylent green – that is just vile, and doesn't get any better through repetition.
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Dror Etzion
Asst. Professor
Desautels Faculty of Management
McGill University
1001 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G5
T: +1 (514) 398 4071
F: +1 (514) 398 3876
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