Fair point.
I never said that the Gaia hypothesis "founded" environmentalism. What I said is slightly different to that, IOW I'm characterizing what to me defines the environmentalism of today, which brings about all these concepts from back then.
I still find you concept of enviromentalism so different from mine that it causes me cognitive stress. Especially since I consider myself somewhat of an enviromentalist, albeit more on the conservationist side.
And you failed to address my point. It is a very simple point. Environmentalism tried to impeach almost every single water dam in my "neighborhood" (i.e. iberia), which will only increase either imports of energy or produce energy from coal, oil, gas, etc. Of course what you say is obviously true, we should look into all issues, not merely energetic interests. However this means that an environmentalist will always have bad things to say about any technology and will always try to impeach it, regardless of what this forces the countries to do instead.
So, we have environmentalists making huge campaigns against nuclear, trying to drive germany and other countries out of nukes. However to what other kind of energy source will they end up with? History teaches us the lesson: when Germany was in the same debate as we are now in 1986, Germany stopped building nukes and started to build... coal thermoelectric powerplants. And they won't stop. They will rise against even wind farms, for they are killing birds. The list is complete, there is no technology they will favor, except their own favorite: downsize, powerdown, "localize", "be more harmonious with nature", etc.,etc. This is holism at work (or even good ol' marxism criticism towards capitalist innovation of technology), even if only subliminally, unconsciously.[/quote]
Fair enough, but does the generalization actually hold power or is it just lumping a bunch of sub-movements together, taking their subjectively worst attributes, mixing them together and then applying it to the entire movement? The people who are against coal power are often for nuclear power; people who are against nuclear power are often against coal power as well; opposition to wind power has more to do with the place, less with the technology itself, et cetera.
Let' see: Opposing nuclear power is idealistic, because it is "bad" in very long term - well beyond the objectors' lifetimes. Direct health or enviromental hazards are practically nonexistant. I would even go as far as to state that the propaganda on nuclear powers' dangers gave rise to immense costs, outrageous safety procedures and overreacting to any single problem. These can pretty handily be used to oppose nuclear power too! Perpetuum mobile.
Opposing fossil fuels is both idealistic and pragmatic, since opposing climate change is very obvious a matter of both present and future. Granted - if one opposes both it either requires the opponent to provide a reasonable explanation of just
what to do, or is just inane.
Opposing hydroelectric power, on the other hand, has more to do with ecological and sociological purposes of waterways and their preservation. Also the fact that you can't just build them everywhere. Wind farm resistance is more nimbyism and locale critique than overall "this is bad"-critic. Even Greenpeace, whom you might argue to be among the more polarizing enviromentalist movements, states that solar and wind are the powers to go to.
Now just how much overlap is there? Certainly some, but definitely not all. In a bunch of socialists you'll always find people to argue for different levels of socialism that should be applicated to society - from social democrats to hard-line anarchists. In capitalist and liberal movements you'll find people like US Democratic party who flirt with the centrist and even social democratic ideals and then you'll find laissez fair -capitalists and anarchocapitalists, who argue that state ITSELF is an immoral creation. Differentiating between the different schools of thought and also the advocates is necessary for analysis - unless you wish to question the entire movement and its fundamentals.
Now of course when all of these are combined you get stuff like current Germany. No to nuclear power, no to fossil fuels and on the top of that ridiculous "no to power transfer lines" - which, together, are a bizarre combination unless you explicitly subscribe to the ideology of radically cutting down on consumption. This is actually not a bad idea and merits a throughout look, but it is definitely a topic better reserved for it's own topic.
In a word, yes. Most "greens" I see in the telly or elsewhere making some campaign or other for this or that, they are constantly invoking the same narratives, the same mythologies, the same "man is a sinful bastard" mantra, the apocalyptic paranoia mindset, the exact same characteristics I recognize in the same religions these urban atheists are still heavily influenced by.
In this case I have to say that although I recognize the phenomenon you talk about, it does not simply hold much sway here in northern Europe. Hell, the enviromentalist movement in here is fragmented to relatively technocratic and socially liberal "right-wing" movement, the politically insignificant and more radical enviromentalism with a touch of deep ecologism and the grassroots field that is often divided between enviromentalists and conservationists. I position myself firmly at the conservationist side.
