Forest for the Trees

06 Mar 2008 Since the release of their 2004 essay, “The Death of Environmentalism,” authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have been calling out the existing environmental movement as obsolete, outdated, and unequipped to address the contemporary challenges facing our planet.

When I first became aware of that controversial essay, I felt excited by their assertion that the environmental movement needs to change its message, from one focused on complaints and ecological limits to one of aspirations and human possibility, if it is to ever increase public support and engagement.

In their new book “Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility,” the authors (dubbed "the bad boys of American environmentalism" by environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben) continue to challenge orthodoxies, and expand on their call to the environmental community to adopt a more pragmatic approach, combining stewardship, economic development and policy making.

Mark Horowitz, in a recent profile of Shellenberger and Nordhaus for Wired magazine, wrote: "Green groups may carp, but the truth is the book could turn out to be the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring."

During a recent lecture and book signing at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, I had the pleasure of talking with Michael Shellenberger, one half of the feather-ruffling duo.

After earning a Masters Degree in Cultural Anthropology in 1996, Shellenberger spent nearly a decade as a consultant and policy strategist to environmental groups. Now, in addition to writing, he is a managing partner of the Breakthrough Institute, a nonprofit think tank, and American Environics, a research and strategy firm that uses social values science to advise philanthropists, social change strategists, and political candidates.

Q: Why did you choose to use Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech as a metaphor for the book?