Civil Discourse

[12yearplan]

Graham Saul’s assertion that environmentalism has a message problem is absurd. Environmentalism does not have a communication problem, it has failed because there is no capacity to solve environmental problems within the constraints of global neoliberal capitalism. There is no message problem, the message should be clear to all by now - that global capitalism is destroying the ecological foundation for human life on this planet - the problem is that we lost any capacity to impose democratic controls on industry.

The problem is a lack of democratic control over the oligarchical corporate state. Even Mr. Saul’s own analysis reveal his error. He points to the abolitionist movement and the civil rights movement as success stories that environmentalist should emulate. And indeed environmentalist should emulate them but not for the reasons Mr Saul asserts. It was not branding or some slick communications strategy that made these movements successful but rather these were democratic movements that appealed to human values to impose democratic controls on the worst excesses of capitalist accumulation - in this case it was democracy against slavery and racial discrimination.

I do agree with Mr. Saul in one respect though, we do need to get out of our “ethical fog” on the problem of neoliberal capitalism. The time for polite conversation is over. You can communicate until the end of time, but without a democratic transformation of our economy away from our current system of global authoritarian corporatist rule, we will never have the capacity to address the environmental crisis nor the accompanying social crisis for that matter.

Letter section: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/environmentalists-what-are-we-fighting-for-an-environmentalist-argues-it-s-not-clear-1.4917208