The Environmentalists Dilemma: Dollars and Sand Dollars

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The Environmentalists Dilemma Dollars and Sand
Dollars

• Bryan G. Norton

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Norton begins by asking

• Must environmental conscience always give way to
  economic arguments? (494).

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The Problem

• If one wants the child to put the starfish back
  but there is no right to life how can one justify
  this request? If sand dollars are just resources
  then there is nothing wrong with taking the
  resources.

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• Does one have to choose either economic
  aggregation (its O.K. to take up to the
  sustainable yield of the population if one can
  make money) or resort to moralistic language
  where sand dollars are more than just resources
  and all have to be put back.

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Why its a Problem

• The aggregationist position may be too weak and
  the moralist position too strong.
• This might be considered the environmentalists
  dilemma, its a dilemma in values or between
  world-views.

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• It affects how we talk about policies and
  occasionally effects the policies we create. The
  idea is that there is more than utilitarian
  argument that is relevant but utilitarian
  arguments are relevant too.

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Two Crises

• We fact two crises an internal and an external
  one. Against outsiders we have to argue for new
  reforms in the face of economic efficiency.
•  

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• Internally we must deal with a variety of
  competing worldviews as There has emerged within
  the movement no single, coherent consensus
  regarding positive values, no widely shared
  vision of a future and better world in which
  human populations live in harmony with the
  natural world they inhabit. (496).

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Communication

• These are problems for justifying, explaining and
  discussing values. If we have to chose either
  economics or preservationist approaches we may
  not be able to communicate.

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Historical Divisions

• Historically there has been a division between
  conservationists sustainability or wise use and
  preservationists let it be approaches.

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Conservation vs. Preservation

• Conservationism was initiated in Gifford
  Pinchots world view as first official forester
  of the U.S. he wanted good resource management
  and today conservationist try to get economists
  to look at the results over a longer time frame.
  John Muir was the first preservationist and the
  first president of the Sierra Club he rejected
  monotheism and took a very pantheistic
  world-view.

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Problems with Each Position

• There are problems with both of these world-views
  if carried too far.

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Preservationism

• Preservationism or moralism might end up being
  totally excluded for the market place and
  environmental impacts totally ignored (since they
  cannot be calculated in dollars).

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Conservationism

• Conservationists may be completely drowned out in
  the melee of special interest groups, they may be
  unable to get government resources for what they
  can only claim is one amongst many social
  problems.

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How this Debate has been Manifest

• The debate has surfaced in biocentrism/anthropocen
  trism debates, those environmentalist who like
  current socio-political system, and may be best
  captured by the division between
  environmentalists who see themselves as deep and
  those who dont (they are called shallow).

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A Solution?

• But focusing on these options as mutually
  exclusive horns of a dilemma has just led to
  distrust between different groups and discomfort
  as people either opt for a single horn or waver
  between both.
•  

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• Rather, one should focus on what environmentalist
  have in common. What environmentalists share is
  not a world-view but policy goals, objectives not
  values.

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How it Works

• Norton thinks we ought not focus on categorizing
  or defending world views in opposition to each
  other, instead we should look for common ground.
  This isnt to deny that There has emerged within
  the movement no shared, positive understanding of
  the human relationship to the natural world
  (498).

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Paradise and a Parking Lot

• Differences in value may lead to shifting
  coalitions regarding objectives (500). 

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Pluralism and Political Correctness

• Freedom to appeal to different values may
  ultimately provide the greatest strength of the
  movement, allowing environmentalists to appeal to
  the broadest spectrum of American voters. (500).
  

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• Preservationism and conservationism may each
  provide useful perspectives.

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Pluralist Perspective

• There may not be a correct value system here,
  rather we may need a pluralist integration of
  different value systems.