Fellow environmentalists are we barking up the wrong tree?

Abstract

In her book her book, Environmentalism and Political Theory, Robyn Eckersley makes a distinction between "survivalist" and "emancipatory" branches of Green political thought, and suggests that each has a different assessment of human nature. The emancipatory wing, which I have operated in for the last dozen years, has accepted three major premises. These are that people are alienated by the present system and an ecological revolution would liberate them along with the Earth; that a radical and dramatic change in consciousness and culture is possible and is the leading edge of social change; and that a society comprised of decentralized and self-reliant communities is ethically and socially desirable. However, what if these assumptions are wrong, or at least partially so? Might that require a radical rethinking of our strategies? Let's take a minute to look at each assumption in turn.