The Environmental Movement Needs to Touch Grass

"Donald Trump is the most anti-environment president since “environmentalism” emerged in America. He has rescinded the “endangerment finding,” meaning that the government no longer accepts the basic truth that climate change is bad for people. He is rolling back regulations that would have protected American skies and waters from pollutants such as mercury, arsenic, “forever chemicals,” soot, and methane. And he is working to demote conservation as a priority use for the 245 million acres of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management."

"The environmental movement-green-minded politicians, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, writers, volunteers, and advocacy organizations-has seemed ill-equipped to respond. Environmental-news headlines get little attention, court challenges play out in obscurity, and when people do protest, our air, water, forests, and oceans seem like afterthoughts amid so many other worthy causes."

"How did the movement lose its vibrancy? More screen time, less wild habitat available to visit, and a shift to urban living have made Americans less viscerally connected to the splendor of planet Earth. Even conservation scientists have been trapped indoors, thanks to the falling cost of crunching large quantities of data (much of which is gathered by satellite) relative to the high cost of the travel, staff, and equipment required to observe plants and animals in the field."

"From 1980 to 2014, conservation research papers based on fieldwork dropped by 20 percent whereas research done by data analysts and modellers rolling around in cubicles increased by at least sixfold."

The government has removed climate-change recognition and rolled back regulations that protect air and water from pollutants including mercury, arsenic, “forever chemicals,” soot, and methane. Conservation priorities for Bureau of Land Management lands are being demoted. Environmental advocates have struggled to respond because environmental news receives limited attention, legal challenges remain obscure, and protests often compete with other causes. Public engagement has declined as more screen time, less accessible wild habitat, and increased urban living reduce visceral connection to nature. Conservation scientists face constraints as field-based research declines while data analysis and modeling increase, driven by the relative costs of travel and field equipment versus satellite data processing.

Read at The Atlantic