Neo-sentimentalism

Chris Caldwell:

The economist Rémy Prud’homme of Paris’s Urban Institute did a few calculations on the impact of France’s new environmental policy. The consensus reached at the summit was that carbon-dioxide emissions must be reduced by 100m tonnes. Mr Prud’homme, writing in Le Monde, set the cost of removing a tonne of carbon dioxide at a conservative €500 ($722). The hit to the French economy would thus be €50bn, or roughly 3 per cent of gross domestic product. This would amount to an economic disruption of similar extent to the oil crisis of 1973, or to the passage of the 35-hour working week in 2000.

The oil crisis and the 35 hour work-week, gradually implemented over time. Oh, the horror that those environmentalists bestow upon us. And Caldwell knows a thing or two about environmentalism:

It is odd that Mr Borloo’s broadside against roads is now just a small corner of the larger discussion. It raises the kind of social questions that used to inspire environmentalists the most: what if we did just stop building roads? Would the goal be to get people to move around differently (swapping to rail) or to move around less (staying in their neighbourhoods)? What is the role for walking? Could such plans work in a land-squandering society such as the US, where much newer elite real estate (those McMansions with two-acre-minimum lots) is not even potentially accessible except by car? Is road-building an effective way of reducing traffic or does traffic simply expand to fill the space?

Whether Mr Borloo’s summons to roadlessness is practical or not, one misses this kind of rhetoric and these kinds of questions. As global warming has come to preoccupy western publics, ecology has become the new “dismal science”. It has grown more quantitative and logistical, less moral and social. Environmentalism used to be about “autonomy, conviviality, simplicity”, to quote a motto that the French Décroissance (“Decrease”) movement uses; now it is all about measuring carbon. It used to be about how we want to live; now it is about how we have to live. Environmentalism used to be mocked for trying to inspire us in the way of a religion. But that was more pleasant than what it now does, which is to try to inspire us in the way of an old invalid’s diet.

Indeed. Gone are the days when environmentalism was an abstract concept pundits could ridicule as something everyone talks about and no one acts on:

And with this new landscape of issues Republicans aren’t even on the map. Because of the Reagan victory, the Democrats went through the period of globalization and the end of communism amid self-doubt and soul-searching. The experience left them a supple party that quickly became familiar with the Hillary cluster. Bill Clinton’s ideology here is necessarily an inchoate one, and in his heart of hearts he may be to the left of where the country is. But he is the first president to understand that the Hillary cluster is not on one side or the other of a partisan fault line (and that is his greatest contribution to American politics). The American people are not “for” or “against” gay rights. They overwhelmingly say they favor equal rights for gays—but then draw the line at gays in the military. They’re for AIDS research funding—but think gays are pushing their agenda too fast. Americans aren’t for or against environmentalism. They believe that global warming is going on—but waffle on whether major steps should be taken to block it. They have shown a tolerance for paying more taxes to protect the environment, but few list it as their number one concern when asked by pollsters.