‘Anthropocentric Indirect Arguments for Environmental Protection,’ Kevin Elliott; Anthropocentric Indirect Arguments: A Risky Business?
Energy scientist Amory Lovins is fond of pointing out that in the late 19th century, it was not picketing environmentalists that saved the whales being slaughtered en masse for oil used for lighting; it was the engineers and venture capitalists that made electricity a viable and scalable power source (Lovins, 2012). To put a finer point on it, humans adopted a practice that benefited the environment (to stop killing whales for oil) neither for nonanthropocentric reasons (e.g., that whales have rights) nor for direct anthropocentric reasons (e.g., that whales provide aesthetic benefits). Rather, the environment was unintentionally benefited (whales were preserved) because of a practice that was beneficial to humans (electricity was cheaper than whale oil). Today, support is gathering around the notion that environmental concerns and goals are most likely to be addressed and achieved through actions and policies that put humanwelfare first and incorporate the concerns of sectors of society to which environmentalists have traditionally beenopposed.Environmentalists, so the thinkinggoes,must becomefluent in the languages of energymarkets, economics, and finance; they should adopt a less hostile attitude toward capitalism and technology; and they must cease to reflexively regard words like ‘growth,’ ‘nuclear,’ and ‘development’ as, well, dirty. The movement, sometimes referred to as ‘bright green environmentalism,’ is spearheaded by the Break Through Institute, a think tank led by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger (2007). Kevin Elliott notes that his argument for Anthropocentric Indirect Arguments (AIAs) builds on their proposals. I think AIAs are probably the least worst strategy for nudging the needle on environmental and energy policy, and Elliott’s defense of their usefulness is sensible and timely. It is sensible because of the reasons he lists in Table 1. It is timely because, in addition to the examples Elliott cites, the momentum that has recently gathered around efforts to combat climate change seems to be fueled, in large part, by explicit or implicit AIAs. For instance, much attention has been devoted this summer to a report on climate change commissioned by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, former
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Energy commentary is often burdened with what Smil (2011a, 1) describes as “a surfeit of shallow generalities ... uncritical proffers of naive solutions ... [and] the persistence of many seemingly ineradicable myths.” This is surely the case, and the stubbornness of this problem can be traced to the inescapable reality that the complex solutions available are sometimes not easily implementable for the non-specialists (politicians in particular) that are often tasked with formulating them. Must policymakers use their tools to facilitate the adoption of electric car infrastructure, or should they prioritize the development of higher efficiency internal combustion engines? What is the place of wind generation, solar power, or geothermal sources in the electricity systems of the future? Is the world really around the corner from a revolutionary hydrogen-fueled economy? And what needs to be done about energy supply and demand if we hope to address worrisome anthropogenic climate change in the timely manner it so urgently requires?
Fascism and the right in Europe, 1919-1945
This new text places interwar European fascism squarely in its historical context and analyses its relationship with other right wing, authoritarian movements and regimes. Beginning with the ideological roots of fascism in pre-1914 Europe, Martin Blinkhorn turns to the problem-torn Europe of 1919 to 1939 in order to explain why fascism emerged and why, in some settings, it flourished while in others it did not. In doing so he considers not just the 'major' fascist movements and regimes of Italy and Germany but the entire range of fascist and authoritarian ideas, movements and regimes present in the Europe of 1919-1945.