Environmental classism

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Environmental classism is a term created by opponents of environmentalism to stereotype "green values" as an upper or upper middle-class trend that is too expensive for the plebs to be a part of. It may also be termed as "environmental racism" in particular extreme emotional appeals, classifying being green as a new "whites only" club.

Often these appeals cherry pick certain hard green postulations to point out radical and costly points, and then sweep to assign anything that can be "green" in the same ballpark to ignore individual ideas. The argument also has a wonderful component to it that anyone who is green is against the "average American," so that anyone who chooses to be environmentally conscious is against the United States. It's a great multipurpose argument for green-baiting.

Another common tactic is to accuse environmentalists of hating poor people in Third World countries because they are being denied the wonders of DDT and being forced to adopt carbon emission caps.[1] And global warming will be great for Africa!

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[edit] A little truth

Like any aggrandized appeal, there is some truth to it. Being green can cost more. In general, this is like saying that paying for your trash to be taken away costs more than just dumping your trash where ever the hell you feel like. Taking the costs of negative externalities and forcing the companies (or people) to bear them would make those items cost more, which ignores the costs others were bearing already.

Some alternatives are cheaper than conventional, such as recycling cans. Since aluminum needs to be mined and liberated from bauxite with copious amounts of electricity it is fairly expensive. Each product needs to be evaluated individually, instead of grand statements.

Alternative energy sources (wind, hydrogen, solar) are also highlighted in comparison to current energy sources. This often ignores that alternative sources are in the beginning stages of research and development, often government-funded, compared to conventional sources after nearly a century of development. Even with with a few years development, the cost alternative sources like solar have dropped more than 1/5th.[2] They also conveniently overlook the fact that in many parts of the world, renewable energy sources are in fact cheaper and more reliable than fossil fuels due to poor grid and transportation infrastructure.

The other thing is that people are annoyed by middle-class hippies pretending to do useful things when they're not, so are willing to believe anything that reinforces the view these people are wankers.

[edit] Food

Another popular talking point is the difference in the costs of food at many organic grocery stores in comparison to regular markets. There is some truth to this, largely in relation to the cost per calorie of food at each. What people fail to report is many parts of the current mass food production are heavily subsidized, corn being a champion of government subsidies. This makes some sense as a country doesn't want to be hostage to another for its food input, but you can't ignore those costs when doing a comparison.

Since many organic farmers cannot compete on low price to large farming operations without subsidies and economies of scale, many make artisan or specialty foods that have more of a margin.

[edit] Greenwashing

Since environmentally conscious marketing is unregulated, many companies simply slap it on the box to alter shopping habits. This has little to do with actual environmentalism, just profiteering from the unregulated nature of the term and the public's general lazy nature towards research.

[edit] Use by environmentalists

The term is sometimes used in environmental studies to denote cases in which the poor are hit harder by pollution or other environmental hazards due to their socioeconomic status (e.g., less access to health care, lax enforcement of environmental or health standards in lower class residential areas, etc.).[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. See Steven Milloy and The Great Global Warming Swindle for classic examples of this.
  2. See Nanosolar
  3. Daniel C. Wigley and Kristin Shrader-Frechette. Environmental justice: A Louisiana case study. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Volume 9, Number 1, 61-82.
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