Why the Environmental Movement Is Not Winning

[mike_c]

3. the environmental movement will never "succeed" because Garrett Hardin was right....

Someone will always cheat for personal advantage. If we could somehow induce 99 percent of humanity to act responsibly and sustainably, the remaining one percent would still screw up the planet for profit. I mean, we KNOW the impact burning fossil fuels has, we KNOW we're inducing climate change at the planetary level, and we KNOW we're polluting our environment at an unprecedented rate, yet we will nonetheless sell our children into slavery if that's what it takes to pump the last barrel of oil out of the ground for profit. And I didn't even necessarily mean that as a metaphor.

Garrett Hardin essentially said that the only way to prevent environmental destruction was through draconian means, including totalitarian government, because people will cheat even when threatened with certain and dire consequences, i.e. arrest and imprisonment. They'll cheat for the same reasons people cheat now, and they'll do so even in the face of totalitarian repression for the same reasons they ignore drug laws now, or traffic safety laws, etc. Humans are contrary animals, and when personal advantage and profit enter the equation, the only certainty is that someone will ALWAYS cheat for personal advantage.