Break Through
Encyclopedia
Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, first published in October 2007, is a book written by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, both long-time environmental strategists. Break Through is an argument for a positive, "post-environmental" politics that abandons the traditional environmentalist
focus on nature protection for a focus on creating a new sustainable
economy.
The book is based on a controversial October 2004 essay by the same authors, "The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World." The essay argues that environmentalism is conceptually and institutionally incapable of dealing with climate change
and should "die" so that a new politics can be born. The essay was widely discussed among liberals and greens at Salon
, Grist, and The New York Times
.
After the failure of climate legislation in the U.S. Senate for the third time in June 2008, Time Magazine
named Nordhaus and Shellenberger "Heroes of the Environment," calling Break Through "prescient" for its prediction that climate policy should focus not on making fossil fuels expensive through regulation but rather on making clean energy cheap. The book's authors reiterated this argument in a September 2008 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times
, arguing for $30–$50bn in annual research subsidies for clean energy.
In early 2008 Break Through won the Center for Science Writing's Green Book Award, which comes with a $5000 prize for the author(s).
Chapter two criticizes conservation efforts in Brazil, suggesting that nature protection cannot save the Amazon unless environmentalists provide an alternative way for Brazil to prosper. The authors criticize the environmental justice movement as focusing on low-priority pollution concerns in communities of color, narrowing the movement's focus instead of expanding it to include job creation and public health
. And they fault climate activists for seeing climate change as a pollution problem like acid rain
and the ozone hole instead of as an economic development
and technological innovation challenge. The authors draw on science philosopher Thomas Kuhn
to argue that environmentalists are stuck in a "pollution paradigm
" when it comes to global warming
.
Part II of Break Through, "the politics of possibility," is an argument for environmentalism to die and become reborn as a new progressive politics, one capable of winning a new social contract
for Americans, so that they are financially secure enough to be able to care about ecological challenges, and a $500 billion public-private investment in clean energy. The last half of the book makes the case for a new social contract for the post-industrial age, one capable of helping Americans overcome "insecure affluence," whereby voters are both more materially wealthy but also more financially insecure than ever before. Nordhaus and Shellenberger say environmentalism should evolve from being a religion into being a church, and they see evangelical churches, with their capacity for providing belonging and fulfilment to their middle-class members, as models for a new "pre-political" institution for secular progressives. The authors argue for concrete policies, from "Global Warming Preparedness," and a global clean energy investment strategy modelled on the creation of the European Union
after World War II.
In the final chapter of Break Through, "Greatness," argues that global warming will reshape national and international politics:
magazine wrote that Break Through "could turn out to be the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
." The Wall Street Journal
wrote, "If heeded, Nordhaus and Shellenberger's call for an optimistic outlook -- embracing economic dynamism and creative potential -- will surely do more for the environment than any U.N. report or Nobel Prize.". NPR
's science correspondent Richard Harris listed Break Through on his "recommended reading list" for climate change.
Other reviewers were harshly critical. Joseph Romm, a former US Department of Energy official now with the Center for American Progress
, argued that "Pollution limits are far, far more important than R&D for what really matters -- reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and driving clean technologies into the marketplace." (Romm also acknowledged that he had not read the book: "I won't waste time reading their new instant bestseller, unhelpfully titled Break Through, and you shouldn't either.") Reviewers for the San Francisco Chronicle, the American Prospect and the Harvard Law Review argued that a critical reevaluation of green politics was unwarranted because global warming had become a high profile issue and the Democratic Congress was preparing to act.
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
focus on nature protection for a focus on creating a new sustainable
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
economy.
The book is based on a controversial October 2004 essay by the same authors, "The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World." The essay argues that environmentalism is conceptually and institutionally incapable of dealing with climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
and should "die" so that a new politics can be born. The essay was widely discussed among liberals and greens at Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, Grist, and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
After the failure of climate legislation in the U.S. Senate for the third time in June 2008, Time Magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
named Nordhaus and Shellenberger "Heroes of the Environment," calling Break Through "prescient" for its prediction that climate policy should focus not on making fossil fuels expensive through regulation but rather on making clean energy cheap. The book's authors reiterated this argument in a September 2008 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, arguing for $30–$50bn in annual research subsidies for clean energy.
In early 2008 Break Through won the Center for Science Writing's Green Book Award, which comes with a $5000 prize for the author(s).
Break Through
The first half of Break Through is a criticism of the green "politics of limits." The book begins with the birth of environmentalism. Nordhaus and Shellenberger argue that environmentalism in the U.S. emerged from post-war affluence, which they argue is a clue to understanding how ecological movements might emerge in places like China and India.
Progressive social reforms, from the Civil Rights ActCivil Rights Act of 1964The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
to the Clean Water ActClean Water ActThe Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...
, tend to occur during times of prosperity and rising expectations—not immiseration and declining expectations. Both the environmental movementEnvironmental movementThe environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
and the civil rights movementCivil rights movementThe civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
emerged as a consequence of rising prosperity. It was the middle-class, young, and educated black Americans who were on the forefront of the civil rights movement. Poor blacks were active, but the movement was overwhelmingly led by educated, middle-class intellectuals and community leaders (preachers prominent among them). This was also the case with the white supporters of the civil rights movement, who tended to be more highly educated and more affluent than the general American population. In short, the civil rights movement no more emerged because African Americans were suddenly denied their freedom than the environmental movement emerged because America suddenly started polluting.
Chapter two criticizes conservation efforts in Brazil, suggesting that nature protection cannot save the Amazon unless environmentalists provide an alternative way for Brazil to prosper. The authors criticize the environmental justice movement as focusing on low-priority pollution concerns in communities of color, narrowing the movement's focus instead of expanding it to include job creation and public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
. And they fault climate activists for seeing climate change as a pollution problem like acid rain
Acid rain
Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...
and the ozone hole instead of as an economic development
Economic development
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...
and technological innovation challenge. The authors draw on science philosopher Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
to argue that environmentalists are stuck in a "pollution paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
" when it comes to global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
.
One of Kuhn’s most famous examples was of the revolution led first by Copernicus and later by Galileo to overthrow the Earth-centered view of the solar system and replace it with our current sun-centered one. But in other instances, new paradigms leave part of the old paradigms intact, such as Einstein’s theory of relativityTheory of relativityThe theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....
, which left Newton’s theory of gravity on Earth intact even as it revolutionized our understanding of mass and energy in the rest of the universe.
Such may be the case with environmentalism. In many situations the pollution paradigm may still be a good way of understanding and dealing with air and water pollution. Our contention is not that the pollution paradigm is no longer useful for dealing with acid rain or rivers aflame but that it is profoundly inadequate for understanding and dealing with global warming and other ecological crises.
Part II of Break Through, "the politics of possibility," is an argument for environmentalism to die and become reborn as a new progressive politics, one capable of winning a new social contract
Social contract
The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept...
for Americans, so that they are financially secure enough to be able to care about ecological challenges, and a $500 billion public-private investment in clean energy. The last half of the book makes the case for a new social contract for the post-industrial age, one capable of helping Americans overcome "insecure affluence," whereby voters are both more materially wealthy but also more financially insecure than ever before. Nordhaus and Shellenberger say environmentalism should evolve from being a religion into being a church, and they see evangelical churches, with their capacity for providing belonging and fulfilment to their middle-class members, as models for a new "pre-political" institution for secular progressives. The authors argue for concrete policies, from "Global Warming Preparedness," and a global clean energy investment strategy modelled on the creation of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
after World War II.
In the final chapter of Break Through, "Greatness," argues that global warming will reshape national and international politics:
Climate change and the political response to it is already defining a new fault line in the culture. On one side of that line will be a global NIMBYNIMBYNIMBY or Nimby is an acronym for the phrase "not in my back yard". The term is used pejoratively to describe opposition by residents to a proposal for a new development close to them. Opposing residents themselves are sometimes called Nimbies...
ism that sees the planet as too fragile to support the hopes and dreams of seven billion humans. It will seek to establish and enforce the equivalent of an international caste system in which the poor of the developing world are consigned to energy poverty in perpetuity. This politics of limits will be anti-immigration, anti-globalization, and anti-growth. It will be zero-sum, fiscally conservative, and deficit-oriented. It will combine MalthusThomas MalthusThe Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent....
ian environmentalism with HobbesianThomas HobbesThomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
conservatism.
On the other side will be those who believe that there is room enough for all of us to live secure and free lives. It will be pro-growth, progressive, and internationalist. It will drive global development by creating new markets. It will see in institutions like the WTO, the World BankWorld BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, and the International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
not a corporate conspiracy to keep people poor and destroy the environment, but an opportunity to drive a kind of development that is both sustainable and equitable. It will embrace technology without being technocraticTechnocracy (bureaucratic)Technocracy is a form of government where technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Economists, engineers, scientists, health professionals, and those who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose the governing body...
. It will seek adaptation proactively, not fatalistically. It will establish social and economic security as preconditions for ecological action. It will be large and transformative, but not millenarianMillenarianismMillenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...
.
Critical reception
Break Through was criticized and praised by both left and right. WiredWired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
magazine wrote that Break Through "could turn out to be the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
Silent Spring
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement....
." The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
wrote, "If heeded, Nordhaus and Shellenberger's call for an optimistic outlook -- embracing economic dynamism and creative potential -- will surely do more for the environment than any U.N. report or Nobel Prize.". NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's science correspondent Richard Harris listed Break Through on his "recommended reading list" for climate change.
Other reviewers were harshly critical. Joseph Romm, a former US Department of Energy official now with the Center for American Progress
Center for American Progress
The Center for American Progress is a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Its website states that the organization is "dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action." It has its headquarters in Washington D.C.Its President and Chief...
, argued that "Pollution limits are far, far more important than R&D for what really matters -- reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and driving clean technologies into the marketplace." (Romm also acknowledged that he had not read the book: "I won't waste time reading their new instant bestseller, unhelpfully titled Break Through, and you shouldn't either.") Reviewers for the San Francisco Chronicle, the American Prospect and the Harvard Law Review argued that a critical reevaluation of green politics was unwarranted because global warming had become a high profile issue and the Democratic Congress was preparing to act.