A recent Pew Research Center poll of about 1,500 people conducted earlier this month indicates that the top two concerns among a list of 20 policy areas are “economy” and “jobs.” It’s no head-scratcher to understand how or why these would top the list of current concerns. Yet the poll’s findings also indicate that “environment” is in 16th place among the list. And “global warming” is dead last. The percentage of respondents who view these as top priority has dropped several percentage points each since last year’s poll.
These findings clarify one of the fundamental challenges we face today as environmentalists and communicators: We have one hell of a sales pitch to make. To watch the level of concern with economy and employment spike while that for environment and climate change flounders paints a very clear picture of how indelibly imprinted upon the national psyche is the accepted-as-fact notion of economy and environment as opposing forces that need to be traded off one another. Unquestioned assumption continues, somehow, to enjoy the role of unquestionable fact. It’s pure unadulterated bunk. And among the great work before us in our particular areas of action and interest — whether you’re keen to act on local sustainable agriculture, or ecosystem conservation, or air quality, or what have you — is that we have this failed monolith of a mindset that is overdue for a good, thorough toppling.
Permit me to geek-out on some etymology here. The words “economy” and “ecology” share a root: oikos, from Greek, for house, dwelling, habitation. Economy and ecology are, respectively, the study and the management of the house. And somehow, to this day, too many of us think about and act upon matters of economics and environment as if they co-exist as a zero-sum game, where progress in one of the two requires retrenchment by the other. Management of house that fails to be founded upon its study simply strikes me as a really crappy way to run the joint.
So the mission before us is to totally trash this failed meme. Throw it away. Do not recycle. What needs to be articulated and demonstrated, clearly and succinctly, is not simply that environmental and economic matters can work in concert, it’s that they already do, regardless of how clearly we recognize their status of joined-at-hip.
I’ve already and previously shared here my deep appreciation for Van Jones’ totally approachable and clear discussion of linkages among job creation, injecting new vitality into long-forgotten communities, and implementing better (non-fossil-fuel) energy systems. It serves as a wonderful roadmap for navigating the challenges we’re facing, especially once we see the interrelated manner of issues we might otherwise insist on approaching as separate and discrete.
But just how to achieve the goal of re-framing in more and more minds “economy” and “environment” as inseparable, jettisoning forever the failed but deeply-seated construct of their opposition, is a huge challenge. We need to make this shift, but honestly, I’m not sure how to best speed up the slow-mo forward movement in our collective thinking. Penny for your thoughts? Because this, here, is a real head-scratcher.