Thanks! I was thinking environmentalism in the 1960s might have grown 100% per year from very niche to broad support. Of course the bar for considering oneself as an environmentalist is much lower than EA, basically consisting of recycling and saying one supports clean air and water.
Yeah, in the modern history of environmentalism and environmental movements, the highest period of growth, activity, and success was in the 1960s-70s. Environmentalism was one of the new social movements of the 1960s that was able to sustain a consistent amount of activity and progress of some kinds, such as the enduring popularity of conservationism, through to the present. Of course, one difference for environmentalism than those other social movements was the problems it was facing keep getting worse over time, with climate change, mass extinction, biodiversity loss, environmental destruction, and natural resource depletion. One of the greatest successes of the environmentalism since then was the role it played in the global response to ozone hole crisis. Since then the movement has expanded into countless other movements. As you yourself notice, this has led to environmentalism as its fractured becoming much more watered down to the point to lots of people it doesn’t seems like a movement that currently accomplishes much at all. A lot of new energy has poured into environmentalism because of concern over climate change in the last several years, which probably constitutes the greatest growth of environmentalism since the ’60s-70s.
Obviously climate change and those environmental problems remain unsolved. In spite of EA not focusing on this important problem as much because everyone else already seems focused on it, it doesn’t seem like nearly enough progress is being made by others. So I understand why there is a great demand for more focus on climate change in EA, since a mindset effective altruism could bring to climate change seems like exactly the thing many effective altruists most worried about climate change think would produce the best solutions.
This is how the current inadequacy of both environmentalism and effective altruism in the face of climate change dovetail with each other. Honestly, I’m not sure what the next step is either than to figure out what an effective environmentalism or climate change movement would be like, and make a bold push through effective altruism and other movements to build that. Hopefully EA will begin tackling that issue in the future, since so much dissatisfaction with the lack of an adequate response to climate change in EA is finally motivating more effective altruists to start talking about the subject.
Thanks! I was thinking environmentalism in the 1960s might have grown 100% per year from very niche to broad support. Of course the bar for considering oneself as an environmentalist is much lower than EA, basically consisting of recycling and saying one supports clean air and water.
Yeah, in the modern history of environmentalism and environmental movements, the highest period of growth, activity, and success was in the 1960s-70s. Environmentalism was one of the new social movements of the 1960s that was able to sustain a consistent amount of activity and progress of some kinds, such as the enduring popularity of conservationism, through to the present. Of course, one difference for environmentalism than those other social movements was the problems it was facing keep getting worse over time, with climate change, mass extinction, biodiversity loss, environmental destruction, and natural resource depletion. One of the greatest successes of the environmentalism since then was the role it played in the global response to ozone hole crisis. Since then the movement has expanded into countless other movements. As you yourself notice, this has led to environmentalism as its fractured becoming much more watered down to the point to lots of people it doesn’t seems like a movement that currently accomplishes much at all. A lot of new energy has poured into environmentalism because of concern over climate change in the last several years, which probably constitutes the greatest growth of environmentalism since the ’60s-70s.
Obviously climate change and those environmental problems remain unsolved. In spite of EA not focusing on this important problem as much because everyone else already seems focused on it, it doesn’t seem like nearly enough progress is being made by others. So I understand why there is a great demand for more focus on climate change in EA, since a mindset effective altruism could bring to climate change seems like exactly the thing many effective altruists most worried about climate change think would produce the best solutions.
This is how the current inadequacy of both environmentalism and effective altruism in the face of climate change dovetail with each other. Honestly, I’m not sure what the next step is either than to figure out what an effective environmentalism or climate change movement would be like, and make a bold push through effective altruism and other movements to build that. Hopefully EA will begin tackling that issue in the future, since so much dissatisfaction with the lack of an adequate response to climate change in EA is finally motivating more effective altruists to start talking about the subject.